Ethan Rayne's Very Bad Day
by Vathara
Summary: Ethan's Halloween costume chaos... backfires. Multiple crossover, Rurouni Kenshin, Inuyasha, and Pet Shop of Horrors among others. Many others. Be afraid.... Complete.
1. Chapter 1

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Ethan Rayne's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

A/N: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rurouni Kenshin, James Bond, Pet Shop of Horrors, Gundam Wing, Harry Potter, Star Wars, NightWalker, Bar Sinister, Pete's Evil Overlord List, the Lilin, bits from Velgarth, various Andre Norton creatures, and anything else you might recognize in passing, don't belong to me. The plot bunny, alas, does. Yes - this is yet another AU of the "Halloween" episode, in the spirit of "What if _everyone_ went as someone else for Halloween?", with a little reincarnation mixed in. And one slight Buffy timeline alteration; the main events of "Ted" have already happened, so Joyce has already had the relationship from robotic Hell. Much thanks to AleXander Thompson for making a transcription of those eps available; they were so much _fun!_

* * *

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"Evil tends to triumph over good... unless good is very, very sneaky."- Anonymous.

A few, faint screams still rang through Sunnydale's night; Ethan Rayne ignored them, swallowing as the chill edge of steel pressed against the skin of his neck. Not quite hard enough to draw blood... but the cool fury in amber eyes promised that could change in an instant.

__

I should've known better than to let that arrogant idiot Bengal use my spell to complete his, Ethan realized, trying to think his way out of this fiasco. _I should have known... but he was raising a demon! What could have possibly gone wrong?_

It wasn't as if he'd gone into this night unprepared, after all. He'd read his Evil Overlord List. He knew the Murphy's Laws of Malicious Magic. There are _reasons_ heroes don't generally encounter more than one master of dark magic at a time, and it has nothing to do with any inherent sense of fair play in the universe. More like the old adage of too many cooks spoiling the brew; only in this case, the brew melts the floor, the devil's food frosting drags down the cake and any unwary mammoths quicker than the La Brea tar pits, and the meatloaf devours hapless diners toe by toe.

Not that meatloaf really needs an excuse. It's over-spiced, it knows it, and as far as it's concerned, it's All Your Fault.

But back to the very sharp steel... or something that looked like steel, though the sorcerer's senses twinged in a way that hinted it wasn't, quite. Something in the katana sang of magic, and darkness, and an essence not of Hell, but of someplace... quite different, indeed. _Damn. That's how he got in._

Ethan was a chaos mage, not an idiot. He'd warded his shop and his workroom inside it against the creatures created by his own spell; hence Ripper and his nest of brats currently pounding against empty air at the doorway. And he'd known better than to even consider opening a shop on the Hellmouth without setting protections that should have held against any demon, vampire, or lawyer on the face of the planet.

Protections this amber-eyed menace had walked through with barely a twinge, heaven-touched blade flashing out to deflect the demon-wards before they could rouse to flaring life.

Which meant the "Demon of Kyoto" - wasn't. Gods, if he ever got out of here, he was going to summon that cretin Bengal's spirit back from Hell just so he could stomp it into necromancer's powder and stuff it in an ashtray.

If. Given the blood on that blade implied Kyoto's demon-who-wasn't had already _dealt_ with Bengal, that was going to be a fairly large _if_.

But he'd paid attention! Ethan thought indignantly. His ventilation ducts were too small to crawl through, he didn't have any beautiful evil daughters (or, given he was dealing with a Slayer, sons) to betray him to the hero, he hadn't killed any messengers bringing bad news, he hadn't ordered anyone to take the hero alive at all costs. All he'd done was enchant his costumes, sit back, and wait for people's own unknowing choices to do them in...

Wait.

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"Evil Overlord List #186: I will not devise any scheme that consists of A) tricking the hero into unwittingly helping me and B) laughing at him and leaving him to his own devices."

Which his spell, in effect, had.

Bugger all. He was screwed.

And his plan had started out so well, too...

* * *

**__**

Earlier.

It's her, Ethan thought, watching the blonde put down the screaming pumpkin with a sense of unholy glee. _The Slayer. Oh, this is just_ too _good..._

A shy redhead came over to the Slayer, and the blonde brightened. "What'd you get?"

"A time-honored classic!" The redhead held up one of his generic ghost costumes.

The Slayer's smile had an edge of sad patience. "Okay, Will, can I give you a little friendly advice?"

__

Oh, please do, Ethan thought, hovering just out of view. Ordinarily he'd be pleased enough to see any of his costumes chosen - it was, after all, _their_ night - but this was far too good a chance to pass up. He'd already dealt with that idiot Ripper. Poor, tweedy Rupert Giles had walked in grumbling about being an adult supervisor, too distracted by his complaints of some idiot principal named Snyder and the charms of the lovely young Gypsy woman beside him to even notice the illusion masking Ethan's true features. Evidently Miss Calendar knew his old friend well; she didn't give Ripper time to talk himself out of anything, just headed straight for the cosplay rack, picking out a dark uniform that hinted of WWI Germany, pointed ears, a nape-length black wig, and a rather nice set of upper and lower snap-on fangs. _Dreizhen_, she'd said when Ethan asked if the costume represented anyone in specific. _The hound who will protect his mistress, even in the depths of hell._

He'd literally had to stifle his laughter in his sleeve, ringing it up. Rupert Giles, the Ripper himself, a guardian hellhound. How perfectly _fitting_.

__

What a wondrous night this will be...

Not that Ripper would think so, given his lady friend had purchased the green tunic, silvery lightsaber, and other assorted gear of a Corellian Jedi.

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Demon versus Jedi. That should be interesting, Ethan snickered. _Short, but interesting._

Ah, the wondrous combinations his shop was spawning, bringing out the chaos hidden in every human soul. Werewolves, vampires, and leather-clad chainsaw maniacs had abounded, of course, but teens and no few adults had hit the racks of cosplay characters as well. Last he'd checked, one of almost every anime had been chosen, two dozen movie characters had joined the horde, Marvel and DC had been running neck and neck, and a few independent comic teams had been cleared out completely. He'd sold the last Bar Sinister costume to a youthful curly-blonde matron in a suit who'd discovered Signet's white outfit and black-tipped white wig squeezed into a corner like the ermine it was. The costume had lost a buckle in hiding; he'd offered to replace it, but she'd waved the damage off with a smile, saying that one of her daughter's old outfits would have an appropriate buckle she could purloin.

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Theft for the thief. Appropriate indeed.

And the lovely list went on. A giggling redhead with braces had snatched up the lizard-touched costume of a movie Medusa. A football player trying too hard to be sneering and manly had taken the silken red bandana, sea-bleached clothes, and cutlass of a pirate; democratic, vicious - and notoriously tolerant of "nameless vices", as more prim and proper souls called homosexuality. A nose-in-the-air brunette had passed by the cosplay rack, heading for his sexiest Catwoman outfit - only to stop in her tracks and turn as if drawn by an iron chain, manicured fingers dancing over the tan trenchcoat, gray suit, and red ribbon cravat of one Detective Tatsuhiko Shido. And most memorably, a hapless, brown-haired geek of a lad by the name of Jonathan had screwed up his pitiful courage and purchased the dark, trick-laden suit and watch of England's most famous spy, complete with license to kill.

__

"Living's in the way we die," indeed. Ethan let a fond smile cross his face; Roger Moore had played the role well enough, but Pierce Brosnan had brought a certain deadly _style_ back to the character.

And now the Slayer's friend, with all these wonderful possibilities, was only choosing to become an ordinary spirit? Pah!

The redhead looked even shyer, if that were possible. "It's not spooky enough?"

"It's just... you're never gonna get noticed if you keep hiding," the Slayer explained. "You're missing the whole point of Halloween."

The redhead smiled. "Free candy?"

"It's come as you aren't night!" the Slayer stated. "The perfect chance for a girl to get sexy and wild with no repercussions."

For a mind-dazzling instant, Ethan pictured the slender redhead in one of his modern succubus costumes. Wings, horns, a silken gold-embroidered bodice, tight black leather pants slit like tiger stripes... Janus, she'd be magnificent. And her evil would far outlast the night.

"Oh, I don't get wild," the redhead objected, shattering his pleasant fantasy. "Wild on me equals spaz."

__

Damn.

"Don't underestimate yourself," the Slayer insisted. "You've got it in you."

The redhead glanced away, obviously wanting out of that too-uncomfortable contemplation. "Hey, Xander!"

A dark-haired teenage boy came over to them, eyes creased in a way that told Ethan he hadn't found quite what he was looking for. Pity. The chaos mage wanted satisfied customers. After all, they shouldn't have to live through this night - or not - with second-best...

"What'd you get?" the redhead asked.

Xander pulled a plastic handgun out of his bag and held it up, shrugging.

"That's not a costume," the Slayer objected.

__

Indeed not, Ethan thought distastefully. Another friend of the Slayer, choosing something so - so ordinary?

Xander gave her a Look, of the teenage male how-could-you-_do_-this-to-me kind, then turned to the redhead. "I got fatigues from an Army surplus at home. Last gun here, the grade-schoolers cleaned out everything else, but - this'll work. Call me the Two-Dollar Costume King, baby!"

__

Oh no, no, this will never do! Ethan straightened, ready and determined to step in. A Slayer's friend, going as a generic soldier on this Halloween, of all nights?

But the Slayer's eyes had caught on the gun, then followed Xander's gaze to the rack of wigs on the wall, lighting on a long chestnut beauty near the black ninja outfit hanging at the right edge of the cosplay costumes. Expensive, even after Ethan had discounted them. But so, so beautiful, full of the promise of magic and mayhem only Hollywood and the darkest depths of anime could deliver. "Xander," the Slayer said, not flinching as he pointed the handgun at her, "I'm... really sorry about this morning."

"Do you mind, Buffy? I'm trying to repress."

__

Buffy? Ethan thought, incredulous. _Someone had the gall to name a Slayer-to-be... Buffy?_

"Okay, then I promise, from now on I'll let you get pummeled." Buffy put her chin on Xander's shoulder, pouting attractively. "Think you could forgive me enough to consider a trade?"

"Depends," Xander said cautiously. "Does this trade involve Twinkies? 'Cause if so, sorry Buff, you're on your own."

"No - well - like I told Will, it's come as you aren't. One night I could not be... well, me. Not do what I have to do. A lot. To Mom, and school, and even Angel..." Buffy nodded toward the chestnut wig. "Didn't you tell me about that one guy with the cross, who never lies?"

"Duo?" The redhead's eyes went wide. "But... he's a guy..."

"So? Willow, this is the _one_ night I have off - well, semi-off, thanks to Herr Snyder - and I want it to be a blast! And I want you two to have one, too. You know the character, right? Help me out, and I swear, I will chip in on anything in here."

__

Oh, this is _too good to miss._ "Now, that's the promise of a true friend," Ethan smiled, stepping near their tight circle. "And given its generosity, I believe I can be equally generous. Fifteen percent off anything you need to assemble your three costumes. In honor of the night. But-" He held up a friendly, warning finger. "You must promise me you'll pick something _interesting_."

They blinked at him; wary, as anyone who'd dealt with the supernatural would be, but innocent. And because of that innocence, their eyes were already leaving his, searching the store for what they, deep in their hearts, _wanted_ to be.

And then the three were a teenage whirlwind of gesturing and plucking hands, roaming the confines of his little shop in one tight knot of excited discussion. Two long wigs came down, silver and chestnut; a third for Willow was discussed but overruled with a claim by Buffy that she could tame real hair into the desired shape better. "Gryffindor!" Willow squeaked, snatching a set of gold-edged red robes. Xander grinned at her, and handed over an elegant wooden wand of polished oak with a Japanese bow. She curtsied in turn, offering a plastic katana to go with his red haori and hakama. Buffy handed over another set of snap-on fangs and a black-handled broom, receiving in their place a modified black priest's outfit, Xander's plastic gun, a plain black ball-cap, and a miniature scythe.

"Aren't you missing something?" Ethan said pleasantly, ringing them up. "I seem to recall overhearing something about a cross..."

"Got one already," Buffy admitted, shadows in green eyes.

"And I've got that nifty little heart locket of Will's, and she's got the brooch to pull off one wicked witch," Xander jumped in. "So we're set!"

"_Animagus_, not wicked witch," Willow corrected.

Ethan tuned out the rest of the argument, smirking to himself. Well. Here was a bonus he hadn't expected. They meant to complete his costumes with items of their own; pieces that held emotional and thus magical weight. The spell wasn't quite clear on what that might do to its effects - the incantation had originally been meant for organized worshippers, after all, who'd get their ritual outfits from one main priest - but it should allow his spell even greater hold than costumes alone.

__

Perfect.

But he had little time to dwell on the warm glow of satisfaction at the chaos-to-be. A certain tall, dark-haired sorcerer was stalking in just as the Slayer and her laughing friends skipped out the door, sneering at what he thought were ordinary teenagers. "Well?" the man only known as Bengal demanded.

__

I swear, I'm never getting plastered in a demon bar again. What good are wonderful ideas for chaos if killjoys like this overhear them? "Do you know how few people choose to dress as _Japanese_ demons on this night?" Ethan said archly. "Oni, tengu, youkai - I have them all on the shelf, and barely any-"

"Kitsune," Bengal said darkly. "I told you, I need a kitsune. Or I go straight to the Mayor with your little plan. He's put a lot of effort into the dark order holding this town dumb and happy while demons prey on it. If he hears about your planned night of chaos, there won't be a scrap of you left when he's through."

"And if you did that, _this_ would do you no good whatsoever." With a casual snap of fingers, Ethan flipped an index card with a name and address toward the arrogant sorcerer. "Try not to leave the little darling where she'll make a mess, hmm? She will be human again at sunrise. As will any - er - detached remnants."

"The summons needs fresh blood," Bengal snorted. "The kitsune has to stay alive until the ceremony succeeds, or Inari might step in."

"Not a good idea, annoying rice-goddesses," Ethan observed off-handedly. "If I might be so bold - how do you intend to hold a creature of illusion?"

"Snatch the twit while she's still human, of course." Bengal smirked.

Ethan's dark brows twitched upward. "Not very sporting."

"You're the only fool who wants sport in this town." Card vanishing into his sleeve, Bengal swirled out.

"Indeed I do," Ethan murmured later as the shadows of the hallowed evening lengthened, adorned and purified to cast Janus' transmuting spell. "And if you're fool enough to injure an innocent kitsune kit on a night full of demons and heroes..." He shrugged, and smiled. "_Sayonara_, Bengal-chan.

"Janus, _evoco vestram animam_..."

* * *

"...Demon, arise!"

Awareness snapping into place, the swordsman breathed in, nerves on fire with the odd sliding sensation of muscle and bone coalescing out of air and elements and magic.

__

And blood, he knew, tasting it in the candle smoke. A fiery wick burned at each of the five points around him, guiding magic as it swept up the last bits of elements into twilight-blue gi and haori, gray hakama, and dark-hilted swords at his side. Purple-gray lightning crackled between him and five jade bowls, dissolving their contents: embers, white quartz, a small silver-and-copper ring of _mokume gane_, sea water, and a branch of windswept pine. Absorbing their very essence, linked by chalked kanji and a trail of still-wet blood.

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Her blood, the swordsman realized, violet eyes blinking into focus on the tiny fox-child whimpering in the corner of this echoing basement, blood spotting her blue vest and hakama, fox ears torn and raw, red welling from slit wrists as she struggled weakly against spell-marked straw ropes. Lightning burned wet red to ash-black; he felt his first heartbeat, and knew the ritual was complete. _Hold on, little one. Hold on..._

"So that maniac Rayne wasn't lying. Even if she's only kitsune for one night... she truly _is_ kitsune." A tall, dark-haired gaijin strode out of the smoke, black robes like a Jesuit's flapping around him, curled scroll in hand. "And with the blood of the demon fox, I gain the service of that fiercer demon whose name whispers fear on the winds of Yamato even to this day..." He stopped. Blinked. Looked up, across... and finally, down.

The swordsman didn't - quite - fume. _I'm not_ that _short!_

Funny. He hadn't felt this sensitive about his height in a very long time. Not since he was a... teenager...

Oh, no.

A quick glance at his hands was enough, even in the flickering candlelight. Smooth and pale under the leather arm-guards; just touched with callus, where sword-work took its toll. Not the weathered hands of the retired swordsman and healer who had died peacefully so long ago; not even the work-worn hands of the wandering rurouni. Hands he hadn't seen since before the battle of Toba Fushimi.

Suddenly panicked, he reached for the memory of those wandering years. Loss, victory, love and peaceful content... they were still _there_, but faded. He knew them, he could feel them; and yet, it was as if they'd happened to someone else.

__

K'so. Okita said returning would cost me, but I never expected this-

"_You_ are the Demon of Kyoto?" the gaijin sorcerer said, voice flat with disbelief.

The redheaded swordsman didn't so much as twitch. _"Hai."_ With those memories strongest... yes, he was Battousai once more.

__

One only hopes I'm a little wiser this time.

The sorcerer _hmph_ed. "I am known as Bengal. And you will serve me."

A red brow went up.

"I said, you will... don't turn your back on me!"

Stalking to the edge of the kanji-marked circle, the swordsman tapped a finger against empty air. Frowned as purple sparks flew from that contact, repelling his finger as if it were the wrong end of a magnet. _Well, that's never happened before... kami, I need more light!_ Something looked wrong, oddly _wrong_ about his hands, and even a hitokiri's night-sight couldn't make it out by dying candlelight.

The kit whimpered, foxy yips that pierced his heart. :_Hurts! Help!_:

Coldly angry, he growled back. :_Adult here. Kit_ quiet.: His breath caught in his throat. _I... said what?_

Kitsune blood. The little one's blood, woven into the spell that had given him back breath and form in this world. The spell that had been his only chance to escape the gentle prison that had held him, with the best of intentions, when he did not _wish_ to be held...

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It will cost you, Okita had warned him, in that mist beyond time. _I know who you seek, and I know what form she was born in. She is not truly human anymore. And if you take this path, neither will you be..._

"It's useless," the sorcerer's sneer broke into faded memory. "No demon can pass those wards without my permission - what are you _doing?_"

Steel rang out of the redhead's sheath, sweeping over the stained gray floor at ultrasonic speed. _"Dou Ryuu Sen!"_

Concrete shattered. Taking the sorcerer's binding kanji with it.

The next stroke took his head.

"As an ally of mine might yet say, _aku soku zan_." Shaking the blood from his blade, the swordsman waited a moment, uneasily aware that those who worked magic might have more than one life.

The kit whined. :_Cold. Hurts_...:

:_Adult here._: He sheathed his sword, scooping the little girl's light form off the chill floor, cradling her against him as that odd, comforting rumble rose in his throat. He didn't try to fight it. Kitsune or not, she was a _child_. And he would never deny a child comfort. :_Predator gone. Safe-_:

He hissed as straw touched his skin, shifting quickly to put the arm-guards' leather between himself and that sudden heat. _The ropes... burned me?_

Enchanted ropes. Meant to hold demons. As that binding circle had held him, before he'd raised his ki through his sword to shatter the ground beneath it. Ki that felt - not tamed and trained, as it had been since his fourth year with Shishou, but... wild. Restless. Darkly playful, like a fox pouncing on mice under snow.

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Oh. Dear. Gods.

Later. He'd worry on it later. Right now, he had a young one to look after. And there were stairs, leading up and out-

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Don't leave the scroll!

Impulse; he listened to it. Snatched up the paper that had called him back into the world, tucked the kit more firmly into his arms, and bolted out of this hellhole.

"'Tousan," the little fox-girl murmured into his haori, snuggling close as he bounded up into a darkened gaijin house, following the draft of night air. "Hurts-"

"Shh." A mortal child might have died of the blood-loss. She was youkai; she should be healing. Yet her wrists still bled. He bent to sniff them, mindful of the perilous ropes. _Human saliva... he licked the blade before he slashed her, the bastard. The spit carries his hate; and she's only a child. She won't heal. Unless..._

Gingerly, wincing every time his face brushed straw, he licked the wounds clean. She yipped at the first touch of tongue, but endured it with flattened ears when he growled.

__

How do I know to do this? How did I know that scent... kami, there are so many _scents..._

__

That's just like you, baka deshi, his shishou's voice snorted out of memory. _Always thinking with your heart instead of your head. Jump right into the fray, and never mind what you do to yourself in the process._

But Hiko hadn't been there, in that place of mist and gentleness. And Okita had - and both of them had friends in danger.

And it was worth it, it _was;_ he felt the little girl's ki strengthening, drawing off his own to heal. _There._ He winced, face feeling distinctly sunburned. But the light from the street was strong enough that he could see her wounds clearly, blood fading to scabs fading to thin, red lines across her wrists.

As he could see the razor points on his white nails, as he gripped the little kit close. _What have I become?_

"You're not 'Tousan!" Her dark nose worked, blue eyes widening. "You're a hanyou!"

__

I suppose she would know, he thought dryly. "Himura Kenshin, that I am. I am-" _A hitokiri. A swordsman. A widower twice over._

A lost soul, escaped from Heaven.

"-A rurouni," he finished.

"A wanderer? I'll bet! I didn't know there were any kitsune-hanyou!" Despite the ropes, she smiled at him, wide and happy and not a little cocky. "I'm Shippou! Where's Inuyasha? He's going to be looking for me, you know; it's a good thing you got to that enchanter first, or dog-boy would've _flattened_ him-"

Kenshin stifled his first reaction - _Isn't Shippou a boy's name?_ - and his second - _Dog Forest Demon? Oh kami, I_ am _in trouble_ - and settled on, "Shippou-kun?"

"Yeah?"

"How is it we are both speaking English?"

"Um..." The kit frowned, thinking fast.

Screams drew them both to the nearest window. Kenshin held up the girl so she could peer through cracked glass, and almost wished he hadn't.

Chaos reigned on foreign streets. Humans screamed and ran, while monsters and oddly-dressed foreigners roamed and fought, spilling blood, acid, and other fluids over asphalt and odd metal contraptions that some fragment of faded memory insisted were _cars_.

__

Horse-less carriages? I remember seeing them, before I left this earth, but nothing so oddly shaped... how long has it been?

"Damn it!" Shippou wrestled with straw, hissing. "If I could just get these ropes off-!"

"Language, young one," Kenshin said automatically, tucking her into his left arm so he could still fight. "Let's go find a helpful human."

More easily said than done. Most fled as soon as he headed for the fights; those that did not, usually needed the blunt side of his blade to put down. _Their ki - it's like Shippou's_, he realized, wishing the summoning spell had formed a sakabatou rather than daisho. Using _mineuchi_ in the middle of a fight he didn't understand left him all too aware he might be leaving unconscious enemies at his back. _They feel of youki - at least, I think that's youki - but even in most of the monsters, there seems to be human ki as well, deep in the darkness. "Only kitsune for one night"?_

"They're humans!" Shippou said after a few sniffs. "This is some kind of spell!"

"So it would seem," Kenshin agreed, sighing as he realized he was once again standing in an empty street. Perhaps they could try gaining entrance to one of the odd, lighted dwellings lining the road; though from the fear of those within, the residents were _very_ unlikely to open the doors. "Yet who could have cast it-"

"Hold it right there!" a young woman's voice snapped.

Feeling the grim intent behind her words, Kenshin gripped the kit tighter. _She thinks I intend Shippou harm; she will shoot if she must. But from the feel of her ki, she'd prefer not to-_

And he truly _felt_ her ki... and stopped cold in his tracks.

"That's it. Put the kid down, nice and easy..."

He turned, and almost laughed.

A darkened street. That ki. Those eyes, touched with fear, but bright with determination. And a weapon, however strange, pointing straight at him.

Even with Battousai uppermost in his soul, Kenshin wanted to smile. _Only one thing to do._

"Oro?"

* * *

__

Oh god, the teenage girl with the chestnut braid thought, almost groaning. _Not the Innocent Look. I can't_ stand _the Innocent Look..._

She _hated_ the Innocent Look. Quatre had the Innocent Look down to an _art_, and Quatre was a Gundam pilot, for Shinigami's sake! And... this guy... was...

Blinking at her. Innocently. All violet eyes, and small frame, and long, tied-back mane of hair scarlet as maple leaves, flowing like flame from an antique ronin's topknot. Five-foot-two of pure, redheaded bish.

__

I am not drooling.

"Who are you?" a brash little girl's voice jumped in.

"Duo Maxwell," the older girl said, lowering her sidearm and sketching a half-bow. She considered freeing the miniature thermal scythe slung under her jacket; decided to leave that option in reserve, for now. "I run, I hide, but I never lie. And _what_ are you?"

Even bound in rice-straw ropes, the little girl managed to look insulted, white-tipped tail twitching. "I'm a _fox!_" _Dummy_, her tone added.

"She truly is," redheaded Japanese cuteness said wryly, bowing in return. Making it look natural, even with those paired swords in his belt. "Kenshin... Himura, I believe is the way you say it here. Wherever 'here' may be."

__

Not one hundred percent cute, Duo realized, as street light caught on Himura's sunburned cheeks. Two blade-scars had left a rough cross on the redhead's left cheek, almost distracting unwitting observers from the depth in violet eyes.

But Duo Maxwell, Shinigami, pilot of the Gundam Deathscythe, had never been an unwitting observer.

__

Those eyes.

Innocent, yes; but an innocence hard-won, held and treasured through the worst humans could do to each other. A pure, deep faith that had seen the blood and the tears and the depths of despair, and still believed life was worth it all.

__

Like Quatre.

And like Quatre, Himura moved with the easy grace of one who knew Death had moved into the small cubby next door just to cut down on his daily commute.

__

An assassin, Duo thought, relieved. Himura moved like a pro, and a pro would _never_ linger in plain view, kid or no kid. Much less walk up to a knowing target.

__

Which means he wants a truce, 'cause he knows he's in just as much trouble as I am.

"Sunnydale, California," Duo said easily, nodding toward a nice patch of shadows off the side of the street. Standing in plain sight made the skin between her shoulder-blades itch, expecting a bullet. "At least, that's what the local lavender-haired weirdo in a trenchcoat said." She shrugged. "Maybe not the most straightforward girl I ever ran into, but hey, detectives are like that even when they _aren't_ saying they're vampires. And her guesses tally with the photographic evidence. As far as _that_ goes; OZ could fake it all, easy. But why the hell would they make half the town think they were monsters?"

"I have never heard of this OZ," Kenshin admitted, following her behind the slender cover of shrubbery lining this part of the street. Light still glanced off them here, but it was the flickering yellow of a candle in a carved pumpkin on the porch behind them, not the glaring actinic white of the street lamps. "A lavender-haired vampire?"

"Yeah. Golden slit eyes, fake fangs, sword of blood - whole Halloween gig."

"Halloween?" the fox-girl asked.

Duo smacked herself on the forehead. "Right, Japanese, Heero didn't know it either... autumn festival. You see it in the American area, and most of the L2 colonies. People carve pumpkins, get dressed up in costumes, go around begging for candy..." Her words trailed off.

"Duo?"

A corner of her mind noted that Kenshin did _not_ automatically follow her gaze, instead intensifying his scans of their surroundings while she focused on the bright wrappers scattered near the carved pumpkin, and felt immeasurably cheered. _Backup. I have backup._ "Candy."

"Candy?" Fox ears perked up; the girl wriggled free of Kenshin's arm. "Mine!" Tripped over her own fox paws, and _eep_ed as the ground neared-

Kenshin's hand caught her shoulder. "Careful, Shippou."

"_Chikuso_ ropes!" the fox kit growled.

"Your 'Kaasan's going to wash your mouth out, kid," Duo warned, bending to the rice straw knot. Funny; it didn't look that complicated. Why hadn't Kenshin untied it? Even if they'd been in one hell of a hurry, she would have thought he could've slashed the rope.

Hands on the braided strands, she paused. Something felt - off. Like a note of panic, from deep inside.

__

Something doesn't want me to do this.

Duo touched her cross, feeling its weight of memories push that _something_ back and away. Scowled at the night. _What the hell was that?_

Well, whatever it was, it could just take a flying leap off the nearest cliff. Fox, little girl, whatever - nobody deserved to be tied up like this.

* * *

__

I'm going to die, Buffy Summers thought, trapped behind Duo Maxwell's personality. She could see the light burns on Kenshin's cheeks - _magical_ burns, not sunburn, like the barest touch of her cross to Angel's vampire flesh - and she knew damn well why Kenshin hadn't untied Shippou. _I'm going to go down in the Watcher's List of Incredibly Stupid Ways for a Slayer to Die - they've got to have a list, Giles has lists for everything. And I'm going to be the first entry for "Took Holy Seal Off Innocent-Looking Demon While Under Crazy Transformation Spell". Perfect. Oh, I could just hurl-_

Rice straw fell free, and Shippou yipped in pure delight, pouncing on the candy like... well, a fox.

"Is that safe?" Kenshin asked in a low undertone. "Her nose is better than mine, but she is just a child."

"Halloween candy, and it's still wrapped," Duo answered, snatching a few bars herself. "Should be fine to eat." She waved a Kit-Kat under the redhead's nose. "Want some?"

"Er... _arigatou_." Looking slightly dubious, Kenshin tore open the package and bit in. Blinked. Chewed, very carefully. "...Different," he said at last.

__

"Nan demo nai," Duo waved it off.

__

Oh, and add to that "Trusted Somebody I Knew Was An Assassin, BECAUSE I Knew He Was An Assassin", Buffy fumed. _Damn it, Xander! You told me Duo was neat. You didn't say he was_ nuts!

Oh god, Xander. Willow. Cordelia. And who knew how many helpless kids, as trapped as she was. All of whom she'd left behind - for what Duo thought were good and valid reasons.

__

I shot Angel. I shot _Angel._

__

What the hell was I thinking?

But it hadn't been her. It'd been Duo, whose all too sane and lucid paranoia had added together her sudden displacement of location, inability to contact Deathscythe, apparent photographic deception showing ordinary versions of her, Willow, and Xander in the Summers house, and Angel's transformation in her kitchen from seeming human to obvious monster as he grappled with a costume-transformed vampire, and come up with _run like hell_.

__

Only "running" includes "shoot both _monsters, just to be sure"_, Buffy groaned mentally, beating her intangible head against an imaginary wall. _At least I've got regular bullets; both of them ought to be able to get up afterwards. But if the Scoobies cut loose-_

Willow's young version of Professor McGonagall _probably_ wouldn't use an Unforgivable Curse. Maybe. She hoped. The animagus had always seemed like a pretty level-headed character in the books, if a little blind to the dark magic sweeping through Hogwarts. She was more likely to leave little monsters wrapped up in magical sticky-tape than do anything really permanent.

Cordelia was probably safe too; if Buffy remembered those episodes of the Midnight Detective right, Shido wouldn't hurt a human. At least, if he had any other choice. _Cordelia, playing the nice guy fighting to keep his humanity when he knows he's one bite away from being a monster? And she said_ I _had issues._

Xander was another story.

__

I kind of wish those two hadn't talked me into watching the anime...

On the plus side, the fanged, clawed, half-demon creature Xander had become probably stood the best chance of all of them of surviving the chaos. It wasn't a new moon, and there was damn little that could take down Inuyasha any other night.

__

Unless somebody went as Sesshoumaru. Or Naraku... whoof, morbid much? Just because we've got a girl as Shippou over there, doesn't mean we've got the rest of the show scattered around somewhere.

Hang on. We do _have a Shippou over there. Which means she'll be looking for Inuyasha - and I could get back to Xander!_ Suddenly hopeful, Buffy shoved at the overlying personality. _If I could just - come on, come_ on-

"Your parents around here anywhere, kid?" Duo asked.

Fox feet shuffled. "Nah. They've been gone a long time." The kit brightened. "Kagome and Inuyasha take care of me now. Have you seen them? Kagome's about _so_ high-" she stretched up as far as she could reach, "-and she wears this neat short kimono and carries a yellow backpack. Unless Inuyasha's grabbed it, so he can snatch the ramen-"

"Inuyasha?" Duo jumped in. "Long white hair, huge sword, fuzzy dog ears, claws, fangs, general bad attitude?"

Fox ears pricked up. "You met him!"

"Maybe." She glanced at Kenshin, trying to convey to a fellow shadow-walker her reluctant doubts about heading anywhere near the whole tangled mess. "It was... pretty confused back there."

__

No! No! Buffy slammed against the Gundam pilot's will, all but tearing out her mental hair in frustration. _That's Xander! We've got to get back to Xander!_

Kenshin cocked his head, studying her.

"What?" Duo asked. "Something in my braid? Man, I knew I should've been a few feet farther back when I shot- hey!"

Fluid as shadow, the assassin was suddenly _there_, one sword-callused hand gently cupping her cheek. Violet eyes peered into hers, deep and gentle as summer twilight.

__

Move. I should move.

But she and Duo were equally frozen, caught in that steely tenderness that felt so much like Quatre.

__

Safe, Buffy realized, as silk-clad arms whispered around her, drawing her close. She felt the hard lump of a hilt-guard against her hip, the softness of red hair nestled against her shoulder, the warm flutter of his breath along her neck. _He feels... safe._

"Vanilla," Kenshin breathed into her ear, as if it were the most wonderful word in the world. "Gunpowder, sugared corn, the dust of the undead... none of those scents were yours before."

__

Vampire dust? I haven't staked anybody since last night - wait. He can smell that?

"Yet none of it matters. Your _ki_ is the same. Your heart, your spirit - the same. Even in another life, you are still yourself..."

"Ewww!" Shippou's face scrunched up. "Get a _room!_"

Duo broke away, uneasily aware the redhead's strength was enough to have made a fight of it if he'd wanted. "You, are acting way too weird," she pointed out, breathing hard. "What the hell...?"

__

Another life, Buffy thought, equally shocked. _Giles said something about... the dreams I have. Of being someone else. Lots of someone elses. A tavern girl. A slave in Virginia. All Slayers remember other lives. Other Slayers, who lived before. Died before._

__

No way. No. Way.

"Dark magic pervades this night, and I know you know not who to trust, that you do not. Yet know this." Kenshin knelt before her, swords placed carefully aside. "I came to aid you. If you will allow me."

__

Full-on formal samurai, Duo thought, wide-eyed. _He's offering_ help. _Straight-up. No strings attached._

Bowed red hair. Wistful violet eyes. The threat of danger, singing along her nerves.

__

"A sword is a weapon," a faint dream whispered. _"The art of swordsmanship is learning how to kill..."_

His voice. Buffy felt her fingers clench, even with Duo controlling them. _I know his voice._

"You two are weirding me out," Shippou observed, sing-song. "Can we go find Inuyasha? Please?"

"Okay, kid," Duo conceded. "But if he tries waving that Tetsuseiga near my braid again, I'm out of there."

Buffy let out a mental sigh of relief. _Right! Find Xander. And if we're lucky, we'll find Willow, and Cordy - and Angel-_

Oh god, Angel...

* * *

__

She shot me! Angel cast a wary glance at his three companions as they made their way through Sunnydale's chaotic streets, wondering when Cordelia would drop the "vampire with a human heart" act and lunge for somebody's throat. Willow as a determined British sorceress sticking child-demons to walls and trees with a wave of her wand, he could take; he just used his best manners and tried to avoid any hint of an Irish accent, and so far he was fine. Xander as an inu-hanyou was a lot more problematic; Angel had already seen the boy dig his claws into steel and casually tip a car over onto one persistent human-turned-monster, and he had a bad feeling he did _not_ want to see Xander cut loose with that sword. Cordelia's blood-sword was bad enough, slashing through vampire and monstrous flesh like enchanted steel. If she suddenly decided she was thirsty, their uneasy alliance would tear like sun-rotted bandages.

And the one person he'd been counting on to hold it together had bolted like a scared ferret.

__

I can't believe she shot me!

"It's probably not her fault," Cordelia - who insisted her name was _Shido, and I'm watching you, Breed, so don't twitch wrong_ - noted. "Whatever brought us here, or let us possess the people you _say_ you know, or whatever's really going on - it seems to have hit us all with some kind of short-term amnesia. She certainly didn't recognize herself in those family pictures."

Well. Angel relaxed a hair. Maybe he had misjudged this girl when they'd met in the Bronze the other night. That was almost... nice.

"Though I'm not sure I'd admit to recognizing myself if it was me in those photos," Cordelia went on dryly. "After all, right now she's pulling off the urban guerilla look. Not exactly the type who wants people to know they once let themselves be caught on film with nice, normal kids..."

"Shut up, bitch," Xander snarled.

Green eyes glowed inhuman gold, as Cordelia gave him a look that the glamour queen of Sunnydale High must have kept locked in the freezer for special occasions. "_Excuse_ me?"

The hanyou cracked his knuckles. "You need your ears reamed out? You've got to, 'cause if you didn't, even a weak human could hear those youkai and oni out there. I can't believe nothing's tried to _eat_ you yet. No matter how you stink."

__

"What?"

"He's likely referring to the vervain and rowan in your herbal bodywash, Detective Shido," Willow commented, wand gripped and ready. "I detected a hint of it mixed with your perfume when we were in the house. A rather primitive defense without the proper intermixed spells of ward and repulsion, but it would give a small degree of repellent effect against most creatures of demonic origin. At least," she amended thoughtfully, "so long as they had a choice of other prey."

Fangs gleamed in Xander's grin. "Like I said. She stinks."

"Huh. And me without time for a spa and shower." Cordelia smirked back. "Live with it, inu-chan."

Angel didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Are you sure Buffy came this way?"

The hanyou leapt a few paces ahead of them, dropping to his haunches to sniff at the sidewalk. "Think so."

"Hey, I saw that mess in the kitchen. She'll be okay," Cordelia said plainly.

"_Buffy_ would be okay. Whoever she is now, she's helpless." At least as far as Sunnydale was concerned. Bullets didn't stop vampires. Bullets didn't stop a lot of things. "C'mon!"

* * *

"Do you hear that, my friends?" Spike grinned as he hid behind a tree upwind of the Slayer's merry crew. A pack of children turned monsters nodded and growled at him, salivating at the implications of Angel's words.

__

A helpless Slayer, the bleached-blond vampire thought gleefully. _This night is beyond neat!_ He'd have to see if he could catch her, and bring her home to Dru. His beautiful, frail, insane Pet might need her sire's blood to be truly strong again, but Slayer blood couldn't hurt.

"Somewhere out there is the _tenderest_ meat you've ever tasted... and all _we_ have to do is find her first!"

* * *

__

"...find her first!"

Shido Tatsuhiko frowned, listening to the wind as she followed her strange companions. So someone else was looking for Duo - or Buffy, as Angel insisted her real name was. _I should go after him... no, bad idea. Duo's human, not helpless; she can take that jackass if he catches up with her. And Mr. Vampire-With-Soul up there is just waiting for me to lose it and bite somebody._

Probably Inuyasha; or as Angel insisted, Xander. Shido almost rolled green eyes. As if she'd be so childish as to attack a kid, even a fanged, dog-eared kid, whose only problems were a foul mouth and a tendency to let his heart override his head when it came to his friends. If insulting her let the youngster blow off steam before he lost his head and started shredding the landscape, she could deal.

__

Besides, Angel's convinced he's a real _vampire. He's never going to believe I heard something he didn't._

Real vampire, hell. Angel didn't have a pulse. Didn't have a heartbeat. Wasn't even breathing, except when he needed to talk. Had _shifted_, in a way Shido and Cain and all the other vampires Shido had ever met never could, face lumpy and monstrous when his fangs were set free.

__

Vampire? No way in hell. Nightbreed - that I'll believe. White scarf fluttering in the wind, Shido considered her options. _If I hold out to sunrise... I'll be singed, but_ he _ought to be toast._

A good backup plan. She hoped she didn't need it. Bizarre as his story was, Angel didn't seem to be lying.

__

It'd explain the pictures in Duo's house, the vampire detective thought. _Cordelia Chase's driver's license - an_ American _license, no less - in my pocket by my P.I. card. The sheer randomness of the monsters and people loose in the streets. The way none of us seems to know what happened between the last thing we remember and suddenly being_ here.

The last she remembered, she'd been leaning back in her office chair, discussing yet another Nightbreed attack with Yayoi, waving off Riho's refill, and listening to Guni's happy sigh as the little green fairy leaned back against Shido's steaming coffee mug. Just because blood was the only food that did Shido any good, didn't mean she didn't enjoy the taste of good, strong coffee. Besides, a detective's office just wouldn't seem right without a half-empty mug ensconced on the desk.

__

Atmosphere, Riho, she'd told the teen once, when the young girl tried to make the office too neat. _Clients don't come here for a cleaning service._

They don't come here for the dust bunnies either, Mr. Shido! the little redhead had pointed out, exhibiting her rare temper.

__

Mr. Shido, the detective realized, stunned. Glanced down at what was under her plain white shirt and mustard vest. _Nope, definitely_ not _a Mister._

And she hadn't noticed until now. Just as she couldn't remember anything between the office and snapping back to consciousness on an American sidewalk. Which meant Angel's story had just made a quantum leap in credibility. Hell.

__

So... what? I'm possessing a high school girl?

__

"Dliw sdniw tfil em tfola!"

"Zatanna?" Angel blurted, shocked, staring up at a woman in blue and white belted tunic, fluttering white cape, and an odd red headdress as she soared into the night, hurling lightning at a giggling green goblin-creature in purple riding some kind of bat-winged rocket. "And... oh god, tell me we didn't have a comic book club dress up..."

The goblin hurled glowing pumpkins down, cackling madly as it swooped past and away. Shido reacted on instinct, nipping her thumb and forming a sword from blood and will. Leap, strike, _block-_

Green-glowing pumpkins exploded against razor-edged blood and a transformed fang of a sword, hung in the air in front of McGonagall's wand a few seconds more before imploding in flames.

"Nice," Angel said numbly from the midst of them, eyes wider than usual. "You know, when you get back to normal, Buffy's going to _kill_ me."

"A fate I'd not think would concern you, sir," McGonagall noted. "Given that, by your very nature as one of the Undead, you have died once before."

"Say what?" Shido and Inuyasha said as one.

"It's how a vampire is made, is it not?" the arcane professor went on. "The master drains his victim, then forces the mortal to drink his blood before death occurs. The victim perishes, lies as dead for a day or three, depending on the mystical environment, then rises from its grave as a creature of the night."

"Pretty much," Angel started.

"Since when?" Inuyasha jumped in before Shido could. "_K'so_ - you're saying your _kyuuketsuki_ are earth and bones? That's sick!"

"Explains the demonic aspect, though," Shido noted dryly.

"That's... not how you were made?" Angel asked warily.

"Drained blood, yeah. Drank blood, yeah. Die?" Shido smiled wryly, letting her fangs show. "Death is the only sure way to _stop_ the change. Your heart slows down while the vampire's taking over, sure, but it never stops."

Angel shut his jaw. "You don't have a demon inside you."

"Hells, no, she doesn't," Inuyasha snorted, loping back onto the trail. "Think I wouldn't smell her _jyaki?_ Like I smell yours? Come on!"

__

So I was right. Angel is a Breed. Sort of. Stalking in Inuyasha's wake, the vampire eyed the blood-sword in her hand. _This body feels like mine. Acts like mine. Reacts like mine._

...But that's what the Breed think about their hosts, too.

Kami. If she'd become what she'd fought for over a century-

__

No, Shido thought fiercely. _I'd never take over a living soul. I swore I'd never take a human life again!_

They'd become what they dressed as, Angel had said. What kind of idiot young woman would dress as a vampire?

__

Ah, wait. Reasoning ahead of your evidence, Shido told herself firmly. _Stick to your facts. Fact, Angel knows Cordelia. Fact, since Mr. Souled and Angsty up there went fangy in front of her, Cordelia knows Angel as a vampire. Deduction - Cordelia has the brains not to dress up as_ that.

Several possible Cordelias vanished from her mental landscape. The brunette photo she'd glimpsed earlier softened, lost some of its ditzy edge.

__

Think of that photo. The girl was made up with style. High-class feminine to the hilt. But for tonight- Shido rubbed a finger over her lips, nodded. _No makeup. She dressed as a guy. Okay; she's got nerve, and enough self-confidence to risk looking weird in a stylish fashion. At least on Halloween._

Specifically, she dressed as a private detective. The kind of person the silk suits would rather not remember exists, until they need us to spy on their lovers, spouses, employees, or random politicians. So... good guess her parents have cash, but not as much as they think they should. Likely they're grooming Miss Prep to flash her assets and marry up. And by assets, they definitely do not _mean a bright, insightful mind._

Now the hint of wariness on the driver's license fell into place. Beautiful, sure. Trained to be. Probably even wanting to be, given her age; from the hints Riho dropped about her high school, kids were vicious to anyone who looked just a little off. Prettiness equaled protection. To a point.

__

Photos again, Shido thought. Or more accurately, a lack of photos; Cordelia wasn't in Buffy's pictures. But Angel and the others seemed to feel responsible for her. _High class and fashionable, being looked out for by a "vampire" who dresses like a leather street tough and kids that have to be struggling just to stay socially acceptable_, Shido thought bleakly. _She's outside even the outsiders._

Gods, but Shido could empathize with that. She might remember only flashes of her life before Cain had turned her to the night, but she could still feel the aching hurt of being neither European nor Japanese, of trying to fit into a formal world of suits and ball gowns, of struggling to study and learn medicine in a country that saw her slanted eyes and odd-colored hair and whispered _demon_.

As if she were already a creature of the night. Doomed to become the murderer Cain had led her to be.

__

But I stopped, Shido thought fiercely. _I_ stopped. _I couldn't remember who I was - but I knew what I was doing was_ wrong.

__

Despite all Cain could do, I still have a human heart.

And so do you, Cordelia. I don't know if you can hear me, I don't know if you're here - but believe. Believe in yourself. Believe in your friends. Their hearts reach out to yours, and that will save you.

Slightly ahead, Inuyasha stopped. Jerked his head up, ears pricked forward, sniffing the night. "Demons!"

"Transformed kids-" Angel started.

A short woman in torn denim jeans and vest with spiky dreadlocks and a gold chain dangling from the stud in her left nostril to her ear sauntered out of the shadows, eyes expanding into mirrors of night. "Here they are, Skinner. The ones I've seen. The ones who'd keep us from summoning our Mother home." Black nails waved at the spiky creature that had patchwork flesh pasted over its bones; she cast a knowing, cruel smile over her shoulder, where red eyes glowed in the shadows. "Don't look like much, do they?"

"Lilin!" Skinner fisted his hands, blades of bone punching through the flesh of his forearms. "Take them!"

In the endless instant before the fight began, Shido's lips twitched into a wry smile. _And if you are listening, Cordelia... it couldn't hurt if you try to believe in me, too._

* * *

__

If I get out of this in one piece, I swear, I'm going to hunt down Sunnydale's comic book freaks and barbecue their whole stash! Cordelia thought, huddling within herself as Shido threw her body into the fray. _Who the_ hell _decided to go as Nakota, demonic seer and daughter of Lilith, mother of demons?_

She didn't recognize most of the Lilin attacking them, but that was no surprise; Lilith's children had ranged through half a dozen comic book lines, and she'd mostly stuck to the Nightstalkers. The others were all horror. Nightstalkers at least had dry humor, mostly courtesy of detective and reluctant vampire Hannibal King.

Which was why the combination of trenchcoat and slightly antique suit in Ethan's shop had caught her eye in the first place.

She'd meant to get a drop-dead-sexy, shut-your-mouth Catwoman costume - or as close as she could find, Partytown was closed with some kind of avian flu, which meant the costume her parents had paid for was just not an option. After all, if Mr. I'm-the-lead-singer-I'm-so-great-I-don't-have-to-show-up-for-my-date-or-even-call was going to be playing at the Shelter Club instead of trapped like the rest of them in Snyder's chains of volunteerism, she'd make sure he heard _all_ the rumors of what he was missing. She'd seen leather and spandex, headed for it in a huff-

And stopped, drawn by impulse back to the coat that looked as if it'd stepped right out of Prohibition's mean streets.

__

Tatsuhiko Shido, the cosplay card had said. _Turned by the vampire Cain while studying medicine in Europe, he remembered nothing of his human life and slaughtered dozens for their blood. Now, in Tokyo, Shido protects innocents from the demonic Nightbreed as a private detective, working with NOS detective Yayoi Matsunaga, trying to hold onto his humanity and atone for his dark past..._

The anime character was slim for a guy, not much taller than his human partner. The suit was just about her size.

And it was _Halloween_. The one night you could dress like anything, even a doctor, and no one would care.

As long as her parents didn't catch her at it.

__

Lucky me, Cordelia thought now, watching from behind her own eyes as Shido slashed through a guy who seemed to be nothing but tentacles in human form. _These freaks would have Catwoman for lunch._

Blood parted tentacles into four roughly-even wiggling lumps; Shido let her sword collapse into blood on top of them, sizzling demonic flesh.

__

"Tempus fugit alto! Cincula lumiere!"

Frozen by Willow's well-cast spell, Bad Timing yelped, then gagged on bonds of light.

"Look, we can talk-" Ripping a street sign out of the concrete, Angel stabbed the metal pole through the heart of something slithery and venomous. "Or not."

__

"Tetsuseiga!"

Bones cut through like kindling, Skinner fell away from Xander in a clattering, fleshy heap. Which stayed still a moment - then rattled, and stirred, and started slowly reassembling itself. "Why can't you just _die!_" the hanyou seethed, chopping and dicing bone into Lilin powder. More creatures were closing in on him and Willow; possibly Lilin, possibly just who-knew-what persuaded by the massive aura of evil that surrounded all of Lilith's children.

Sucking in breath, Shido nipped her thumb, drew another blade, and went after Nakota. You didn't need to have read the comics to spot the seer. As long as she was free, the others had forewarning of their moves.

__

I hate to even think it - but we need Buffy, Cordelia realized. _Or Mr. Giles. Or_ somebody. _Heck, I could even go for Mrs. Summers right now. From what I heard Buffy say - and she'd know! - she's way handy with an axe._

Angel had wondered out loud where she was just after he'd convinced the three transformed teens not to attack him, muttering something about having to get the vacuum out before he had to explain vampire dust on the floor to Buffy's mom.

__

Wish I could tell him she's okay. She didn't get kidnapped, she's just off throwing a party at the gallery for her best clients, showing off some mysterious hermit artist guy's pottery. A party my parents are probably sucking the joy out of as we speak-

A. Costume. Party.

Ohmigod. My parents. Are in costumes. At Mrs. Summers' gallery.

Oh, it can't get _any worse..._

* * *

__

Mokume gane - "wood-eye metal". A specific 19th century and modern jewelry technique developed for precious metals from the folding-and-pounding techniques of sword-making.

__

Youkai - "demon", supernatural creature.

__

Hanyou - half-demon.

__

Kitsune - fox. Or fox-demon.

__

Dou Ryuu Sen - Earth Dragon Strike.

__

Aku soku zan. "Evil. Swift. Slay." Sometimes translated as, "Destroy evil, instantly."

__

Mineuchi - Using the blunt side of the sword to strike, instead of the edge.

__

Youki - demon energy.

__

K'so - "Damn", beastly.

__

Kyuuketsuki - vampire(s).

__

Jyaki - aura of demon power.

The Evil Overlord List can be found at: www(dot)eviloverlord(dot)com(slash)lists(slash)overlord(dot)html


	2. Chapter 2

Leaping to the top of one of the few solid counters in this vast room of artworks, Signet kicked a drooling zombie back into a mass of screaming, fleeing humans, twisted a sai out of a female ninja's black-gloved hand, and brought a black earthenware pot down on a Casanova's bearded head. _Ni'itsu Kakunoshin_, the black-printed card wafting away from pottery shards read, followed by a string of numbers the espionage-trained Blood couldn't help but recognize as what humans called _real money_.

"Say _konban wa_," a tall, dark-haired swordsman in a red and white cloak said lightly, casually applying the hilt of his katana to the back of the ninja's head. The ninja collapsed without a sound. "Pitiful. Just pitiful. What has _ninjutsu_ come to?" Dark blue eyes met her gaze, apparently oblivious to the costumed mob packing itself into the furthest corner of the room. "You are paying for that, Mrs.-" He stopped. Blinked. Looked her up and down, from white high-heeled boots to white, slashed and buckled hip-hugging pants and top, to the black tip of her otherwise white braid, very carefully.

"I'm not a _Mrs._ anything." Tapping white, pointed nails against the side-buckles of her pants, Signet couldn't help but smirk. Her ermine sense of smell might not be as sharp as Blazon's wolf nose, but she could detect the shift in his scent from polite neutrality to real interest. "See something you like?"

One nail clicked instead of clacked, and she risked a glance at her left hip. One of the white-painted aluminum buckles there had been replaced with silver. _I don't remember doing that..._ A finer element of the swordsman's scent filtered through, and Signet cocked her head, distracted from the bright-and-shiny. "Who are you?"

Dark brows rose almost into long hair. "You don't remember?"

"Would I ask?" Signet sniffed, opening her mouth slightly to roll the scent over her tongue. "You have a mixed scent. Panther? Or some other cat I don't know. I don't remember any panthers in the labs at Circle Sea. And I would."

"Not... quite a panther." The tall swordsman smiled oddly. "Call me Hiko, then."

"Signet," the infiltration expert of Bar Sinister said firmly, leaping down with inhuman, fluid grace. "Sorry if I screwed up your passing for human-"

Groaning, the zombie disentangled itself from the mob, and lunged.

Signet met it midway. A snap kick, a backhand, a twist, and she was behind it. Dispassionate as the ermine whose DNA had been mixed with human to create her, she snapped its neck.

"-I just didn't know any of us could," Signet finished, flicking bits of dead flesh off her hands. _Ugh. Can't even eat the kill_. Not that any of Bar Sinister would; they weren't rabids. You didn't eat humans. They were half-kin, after all. More or less. No matter what the Supreme Court had decided about genetically engineered life-forms.

Hiko waved it off. "Given the amount of wild youki loose this night, I doubt they'll remember specifics." He frowned. "And more of it's coming this way."

__

Youki? Japanese. He must have been designed as an infiltrator, or for international military application. Signet stalked over to the wide glass windows in front, scowling at the fires and odd, green and blue lights heading their way. "They don't smell like us." She saw tendrils wave where one of the closer creatures should have had a face, and shuddered despite herself. She hated the humans for shooting Bug simply because it was ugly, but still- "Did Circle Sea make _that?_"

"I doubt it." His sharp, handsome face was grim. "They're looking for prey."

She twitched her braid over her shoulder, reassured by the tail-like brush of hair over her skin. "Humans? Or us?"

Hiko smiled suddenly, sheathing his sword. "Signet, my fine, fluid _kunoichi_... as far as what's out there is concerned, we _are_ human." His smile chilled. "And prey."

"Mr. Ni'itsu?" one of the braver humans in the crowd behind them asked tentatively. "Mrs. Summers-?"

"Stay back!" Signet ordered. "We'll handle this!"

And the horde was on them.

"One good thing, though." Hiko smirked in the midst of the fight, blade splitting flesh like lightning. "With this much chaos loose, my _baka deshi_ has to be out there somewhere."

__

Idiot student. "You're a teacher?" she blurted, twisting between three creatures' strikes as she applied all the Aikido training her instructors had seen fit to give. No control-collar shocks if she did it wrong, here; only pain, and blood, and death.

"When my student sees fit to find me... annoying habit of his." Hiko grinned darkly, taking out four foes with one swift swing. "Though I will admit that finding me this time may have been a _bit_ more difficult."

Bodies and pieces of bodies fell; the surviving creatures bolted back into the street. Blood hot with kill-hunger, Signet leaped after them-

Hands closed on her shoulders. "Stay."

The command - so like the labs, so like the scientists and company executives who thought they could _own_ her, who _had_ owned her before the shaman Joshua Brand had freed them all - sent her temper over the edge. "Don't you _dare_ tell me to-"

Hiko dodged her first blow, caught her second in an uncompromising grip. "What if those creatures come back?" He nodded toward the others in the art gallery. "They can't protect themselves."

Signet snarled, but relaxed her arm. "What about your deshi? If he runs into trouble-"

Hiko snorted. "After what I know he went through to get here? I pity anything that runs into _him_."

* * *

__

Fine for you, but what about my daughter? Joyce Summers wanted to shout, rattling the cage of Signet's focussed will. _She's out there, somewhere..._

__

And there's nothing I can do about it.

This was worse than the PTA meeting. At least then, when that bleached blond and his gang of odd-looking thugs had attacked her daughter, she'd been able to pick up an axe and _do_ something.

__

Wait a minute, Joyce thought, hovering in the background as Signet stalked through the shadows near Hiko, keen eyes peering out into the night. _I went after the blond with an axe? I_ hit _him with an axe? And he walked away?_

__

Why didn't I remember that before?

And that image dredged up others, one odd event pulling another out of memory in a cascade of accumulated weirdness. Signet's personality might be a wall insulating her from control of her body, but that very insulation seemed to have cut off some kind of blinder that had been affecting how she saw Sunnydale.

__

A gang? Joyce realized. _With fangs, and those faces, and walking away from axe blows... what on earth was I thinking?_

__

I did _hit him with an axe. And Buffy and Mr. Giles knew it._

__

And they've never mentioned it. Ever.

Just as she'd never said anything about the odd rips and stains in Buffy's clothes, night after night. The traces of dust that smelled like old death. The weird, half-heartedly explained incidents of destruction that seemed to hit town every week; a 'gang attack on PCP' here, a 'hallucinogenic gas leak' there, 'unexpected localized quakes' that left only certain buildings in fiery ruins.

__

Homicides. Missing people. Buffy out at all hours with her friends, finding trouble - and she promised me she wouldn't go looking for it. Not to mention that boyfriend she won't talk about, who never shows up during the day-

Belatedly Joyce realized that Signet was drawing sharp nails lightly down a muscular arm, over the leather arm-guard, offering the pottery artist turned swordsman a knowing smile. The ermine in her loved killing or mating both, and there hadn't been _nearly_ enough killing.

__

Oh, no...

But Hiko only intercepted her hand, holding it with odd, callused tenderness. "On another night, under other circumstances - yes. Preferably with a good view of the moon, and a bottle of sake for the both of us." He released her, running his fingers across hers in a deliberate caress as he took one civil step back. "But until those we care for are safe - no. Forgive me."

Signet shrugged, turning her attention back to the chaos wandering the night. Joyce breathed a sigh of relief, mixed with a guilty regret. She wasn't _old_ old, but since Hank had left... no one had looked at her quite that way. At least, no one who hadn't tried to drug her, attack her daughter, and drag her off as a fifties-era permanent captive.

__

Note to self: get Buffy to check this guy out. Looks harmless doesn't mean is _harmless._

Not that Mr. Ni'itsu looked harmless, right now; sword loose in its sheath, stance relaxed and ready, eyes flickering from warm blue to fierce, inhuman amber.

As inhuman as she was, right now.

__

When I catch up with you, Rupert Giles - you'd better have a damn good explanation!

* * *

A final slap of steel against flesh turned monstrous and serpentine, and Dreizehn's opponent went down. Eyes still shut tight, the hellhound reached out gloved fingers to the quivering throat-

"She's down, but not dead," a woman's voice said calmly, underlain by an odd, low hum. "Is that important to you?"

"Ja," Dreizehn said firmly. _Though I do not know why. The other little monsters I found myself among were mostly fay; not harmless, but small threat to any wary human. But this one is a gorgon. If I allow her to live, she could threaten my mistress._

Yet his mistress wasn't here, and something in him did not _want_ to kill.

Even though it was very, very frustrated...

Frowning, the hellhound stepped off the candy-strewn porch, sheathing his katana as he cocked cropped ears to distant screams in the night. Sniffed the air. Determined from the faded reek of snake and youki that he was far enough from the unconscious gorgon to risk opening his eyes, and looked toward the hum.

A blade of silver light blazed in the hand of a tall, black-cloaked woman in multi-layered green dougi and trousers, the black belt at her waist holding a mini-coil of rope and no few unidentifiable gadgets. Her face was calm, if puzzled, an odd contrast to the brilliant white and amber-streaked not-quite-an-orchid pinned into her dark hair. "Odd. I sense both the Light Side and the Dark Side within you. Yet you are not evil." Her thumb switched something on the metal handle in her grip, and silver light vanished. She bowed fluidly. "Mira Tanrith, Jedi Knight of Corellia."

"Dreizhen," he answered in turn, granting her the stiff, formal bow of his homeland's military. "Once of Germany."

"Germany?" Mira clipped the metal cylinder to her belt. "I don't think I've heard of that planet."

The hellhound scowled as he scanned the unfamiliar suburbs. White-painted houses, trimmed with yellow or blue or rich reds. Modern streetlights, neatly mowed lawns, hedges shaped into walls or globes or strange vegetable animals. Carved pumpkins on the porch to scare off evil spirits, as if it were _Walpurgisnacht_. And through it all, sounds of shattering and screams and pain. "This is not Germany. And it is not Los Angeles' Chinatown."

"A relatively low-tech planet, or so it appears," Mira agreed. "They're past sticks and stones, but I haven't seen so much as a speeder." She cocked her head at him. "You sense something?"

"Japan?" he wondered aloud, tasting a hint of inu-youkai and kitsune on the wind. "No, not Japan..."_ And yet, I scent my distant kin. Should I find them? Foxes might help, or not, but a fellow demon-dog would understand. I_ must _find my mistress. I_ cannot _leave her unprotected._

A sense of agreement. Worry. The faint, faded image of a blonde who was not Karen, reaching him through the steel sheathed at his side.

Dreizhen paused, ears pricked back. Claws clenched within dark glove leather, closing on the hilt of his blade. He bared fangs in a snarl, glaring at the night.

"Something touched your mind," Mira said plainly. "Who?"

"A demon? A ghost?" Dreizehn shook his head. "It is gone."

"No. No, I don't believe it is." She held out a hand. "May I?"

He drew back. "What do you intend?"

"As a Jedi, I may touch the minds of others strong in the Force. Which you are." She gestured toward the night. "Something seems to have plucked us from our proper places and left us here, in the midst of a disturbance in the Force. Something which... resonates... with the presence I sense within you. It may have answers."

The hellhound stiffened. "You wish to tamper with my mind?"

"Not tamper," Mira said calmly. "Investigate."

"I know you not." Dreizhen turned, hand flashing to his sword. "Nor _you._"

"Easy, easy..." The dark-haired teen who'd tried to sneak up on them flashed a British rogue's own charming smile, dusting off the lapels of his suit. "Bond. James Bond. And outrageous as it may outwardly seem, based on the rather striking evidence of various dismembered ruffians left along the way, this young lady does indeed appear to be-" he stifled a wry laugh, "-a Jedi. You should be perfectly safe."

"I am a guardian of truth and justice in the galaxy," Mira nodded. "I mean you no harm."

Slowly, Dreizhen lifted his hand from the hilt. "I, too, am a guardian," he warned. "Walk carefully."

* * *

__

Dear god. Wrapped in what small protective magics were his to command, Rupert Giles held tightly to his sense of self as Mira's presence infiltrated Dreizehn's will. Mira, not Jenny; the wisps he could sense through his shielding were all Jedi, not a trace of techno-pagan remaining. _Whoever cast this spell was frighteningly thorough._

Her power washed into him like warm sunlight, systematically gathering up each piece of Dreizhen in search of him. It was terrifying. Amazing. Exhilarating.

__

No!

The Watcher shivered within the hellhound's dominant personality, feeling the subtle creep of magic inward. He doubted other victims of the spell would notice, but his experiments with Eyghon in his young idiot teenager days had left him quite sensitized to the feel of another being's essence touching his own.

This wasn't merely touching. It was encroaching. Mingling. Waking the Ripper within him from his decades-old grave, and infusing what had been an arrogant, angry young man with all the hellhound's own demonic emotions. Arrogance. Pride. Contempt, for any creatures not of his pack. Unwavering devotion to those few who were...

__

Clear. You must keep your head clear, Giles reminded himself firmly. _The children are counting on you._

Easy to think. Hard to believe, when the flex of magic and Mira's power swept him along like a clear, chuckling stream.

__

Like a drug, Giles told himself forcefully. _This is not real. This is not_ me.

__

Are you sure, Watcher? the part of himself he thought of as Ripper taunted. _Or are you only saying that because you're afraid?_

With a hellhound in control of his body? Who wouldn't be afraid?

A hellhound he'd convinced not to kill... though he was sure that was but a momentary lapse on the creature's part.

And yet, it didn't _feel_ like a lapse. Not with the odd memories whispering through his shields; memories that spoke of a fierce, merciless guardian, but not an executioner.

Which wasn't like Ripper at all.

Feeling for the subtle chill of steel that was his own katana at Dreizehn's side, Giles let out a mental sigh. _I am terribly, desperately confused._

Yet he was a terribly confused _Watcher_, not the arrogant young idiot who'd been possessed so many years before. Which ought to count for something.

__

Although I can't precisely consult my books and look stuff up at the moment...

Still. The principles remained. Gather enough facts, peer at them through a prism of knowledge, practicality, and a jigger of sarcasm, and thence espy a solution.

Fact: he, Jenny, Jonathan, and many of those innocent, sugar-hyped abominations they'd been escorting this night, had somehow been transformed into the very characters they'd chosen to portray. Fact: while from his own experience the host mind remained, and might even influence the possessing mind, it was the character who was in control. Fact: he was currently within the mind of a creature that might well help Buffy and her cohort... or tear them apart.

At the moment, the odds were leaning toward tearing. Vampire slayer, demon... Dreizhen might not be actively malevolent, but the hellhound had a perfectly healthy sense of self-preservation. And as Xander had so painfully discovered with the hyena possession, human friendship wouldn't keep a pack animal from its instincts.

__

Unless I can influence those instincts.

Hellhound did include _hound_, after all; and the alien memories inflicted on him contained images of older and younger packmates, feelings of protectiveness, a firm nip to misbehaving pups, a thrill of hunting with fellow adults in mortal and hellish realms. If he could only touch those feelings within Dreizhen, urge the creature to apply them to Buffy...

"There you are." Mira's mind ruffled the edge of his shields.

__

Damn - got distracted-

"Won't you come out?" She traced the edge of his power; not prying, not yet. "I promise you, it's safe."

__

Safe is precisely what it is not, Giles realized with a shudder. _You mean to tear off my shields-_

No, a Jedi probably wouldn't. Though she was asking him to drop them. Which was, in a way, worse.

Hide, or yield. There were no other options. Dreizhen was just as innately untrusting and ruthless as he himself. If he tried to influence the demon while holding anything back - the hellhound would hunt down the intruder in "his" mind and destroy it. _Allowing a demon within me. Granting it the chance to kill. I must be enspelled, even to consider it._

And yet - Dreizhen wasn't the only killer in this body, was he?

__

Dreizhen is a demon!

True. But everything he could sense, everything he could remember, said the hellhound's spirit followed one clear code. The same code Giles had chosen when he'd turned away from Ripper's path for good.

__

Destroy evil. Instantly.

Thick scents of inu-hanyou, vampire, and human magic smote Giles even through the mental shields. _Angel!_

A surge of odd fury shot through him, mingled with frustration. Surely it couldn't be a good sign when he could recognize his Slayer's vampiric boyfriend by scent.

__

Where Angel is, Buffy won't be far. Bracing himself, Giles dropped the shields. _Jenny!_

Holding back Dreizehn's instinctive rush at the human personality, Mira started. "Odd. You think of me - and yet you think of someone else."

__

No, I don't. That's the problem-

"Slowly, friend. Be at peace."

At peace. While chaos reigned, and enchanted innocents slaughtered each other. Gods, Jedi! _There's no time!_ he thought frantically.

"Impatience leads to the Dark Side," Mira warned.

__

Stuff the Dark Side! Jenny, if you can hear me - we've been enchanted. You're not _Mira. I'm_ not _Dreizehn. We have to get them out, get control of our bodies again-_

"You would have me cast out a part of your own soul. And mine." Mira's voice held a sudden edge. "You may not be evil, Rupert Giles, but that _is_ of the Dark Side."

__

Dreizhen is not my soul! he growled, sensing as well as hearing the outward growl as Dreizhen reacted to his threat.

"Calm yourself, Dreizhen. Be within the living Force." He felt her fingers drift across his forehead. "Very odd. One of you must be mistaken, and yet, I sense that no spirits dwell within your body that should not claim it as their refuge."

__

Oh lord. How strong is this spell? A demon's spirit should not belong in a human form. Unless... Giles felt sick. _A transformation. A very thorough transformation._

"I don't understand this 'transformation spell' you refer to," Mira said clinically, "though it seems to have something in common with genetic manipulations the Republic outlawed centuries ago. Still..." She placed her fingertips along his temples, warm dots of solace. "I do sense a dissonance within your mind, stronger than that within my own. And that, the Force will allow me to mend. If you are willing?"

__

Just do something!

"Ah, good. All three of you agree."

__

Three?

Light poured through him.

* * *

Jenny Calendar blinked, taken aback by the calm, gentle power that had measured her, weighed her - and returned her to herself. Or not quite herself, she realized, touching the bloom still in her hair. No longer the slightly waxy orchid Giles had gifted her with to complete her costume, it still had the silky, delicate yet steel-strong petals of a bloom of Rostek Horn's Jedi line. _I wonder, if we checked the DNA, would we find coded Jedi lore..._ __

Oh, no! Giles! "Rupert?"

"Just barely. I think." Her fellow teacher shuddered, like a dog shaking off drops of rain. "Let's pray our alter selves vanish with the spell. Their influence is... disturbing."

"Dreizehn and Mira came with the spell," Jenny pointed out, touching the lightsaber at her belt with stunned awe. "Where did _he_ come from?"

"Yes, well..." Giles coughed, automatically taking his glasses out of Dreizhen's jacket pocket. Put them on, carefully negotiating the frames over Dreizehn's cropped ears. Frowned, and took them off again. "It's not well known, but Watchers return as frequently as Slayers. Part of our judgement, I've always thought, for sending such young lives into harm's way. Though oddly enough, this is the first time I've felt any memories other than my own. You have no idea how that worried my father. For a time he thought he'd had a changeling switched into the family..."

"Rupert, he did _not_ feel like a Watcher," Jenny said bluntly. "More like - a wolf."

"I seem to recall you're not far wrong. He was Miburou." Giles frowned at faded memory. "A wolf of Mibu..."

"Much as I hate to break up this fascinating discussion," Jonathan drawled in Bond's classic tone, drawing a pistol from a well-concealed shoulder holster, "I do believe something rather serious is happening over there."

Unconsciously Jenny reached out to the flow of life in that direction - and took off at a dead run.

__

Darkness. Violence. A hate for all that lives.

Light, fighting so hard against it.

Lightsaber shimmering ablaze, the Jedi sliced one wing off a cloven-hoofed demon attacking Willow, vaulted over the swath of green acid left by another Xander had slashed open, dodged under Cordelia's blood-sword as Sunnydale's glamour queen beheaded a woman with dreadlocks and night-mirror eyes, and stabbed the worm-like slithering _thing_ constricting Angel through what passed for its heart. Gunshots and a guttural snarl punctuated her moves; in the Force she felt Dreizhen's blood-thirst as the hellhound sliced apart creatures that would have struck at her throat, Bond's cool calculation as the spy sniped at any demonic types that were considering joining the fray.

"Ms. Calendar!" the vampire coughed. "Am I glad to see-" He blinked, eyes crossing as they tried to focus on the silvery energy near his nose. "Oh, no. Not you too..."

"Relax," Jenny said firmly, lifting her blade back up to guard. Though she felt anything _but_ relaxed. _I've never used a sword before, and now... worry about it later. As Mira would say - for now, survive._ "Rupert and I managed to pry off some of the mental aspects."

A dismembered, clawed arm flew past, flung by a growling hellhound.

"Mostly," Jenny amended, wide-eyed. _So much anger in him. And I never knew, never guessed._

No. That wasn't quite true. She'd sensed the edges of that darkness months ago, when he'd cast the circle to bind Moloch. Seen the pure determination that drove the man when Spike had attacked the PTA meeting, the librarian's usual tweedy harmlessness cast aside to head out in the face of an unknown number of vampires to rescue his Slayer.

__

The guardian hellhound. That's the last time I listen to the rune-castings when I go picking Halloween costumes!

"Okay," Xander panted, tossing white hair over his shoulder as he slashed a tusked skull off a twisted, animate skeleton yet again. Acid had splashed his arms, reddening his hands; fire-rat robes were still smoking slightly, mending themselves. "Where's the damn pervert monk and his _kazaana_ when you need it... anybody have any bright ideas on how to put this thing down?"

"Just one," Cordelia said grimly, shrugging off what was left of her sizzling, acid-eaten trenchcoat, absently brushing off her gray suit sleeves. "Professor? Can you sticky-tape this Skinner guy the way you did those little ones?"

"I can, yes, Detective," Willow said, accent even more British than Giles' as she raised her wand. "But it won't hold but a minute."

"Doesn't have to. Get back."

A shouted spell from Willow, and Cordelia lunged, impaling Skinner's breastbone with glowing, razor-edged blood. The creature shuddered. Lay limp.

Shaking the blood from his blade, Giles sniffed the air. "Is it-?"

"Not dead," Jenny reported, sensing the Darkness still flowing about the bones. _Brr. So much power. What_ is _that thing?_

"Somehow, I didn't think it would be." Releasing the blood-sword, Cordelia glared at still-twitching bones. Blinked, eyes shifting from slitted gold to human green. "So Angel knows you guys. I take it that means you know us? Or anyway, who we're supposed to be?"

"_If_ one believes this tale of enchantment and possession the two of you seem determined to spin," Willow said primly.

"And what's more likely?" Cordelia said plainly. "Each of us getting plucked out of our own lives to drop into the middle of this chaos, without any memory of why, without any of our friends come hunting us - and believe me, Guni would _never_ let me get snatched across dimensions without coming right after me - or one spell that hit everybody? It fits the facts, Prof."

Willow drew herself up, eyes snapping fire. "Save those _facts_ you seem so fond of would declare us no more than bits of some muggle's petty imagination, Detective!"

Bones snapped as Giles stomped on a whimpering demonling, and Jenny winced. "I hate to break it to you, but-"

Xander raised his head to the wind. "Shippou!"

* * *

"Look at you," the blond vampire crooned, stalking toward them across the vacant warehouse floor as some of his minions crowded them near a wall of crates and others guarded the exits. "Shaking. Terrified. Lost little lambs."

"Earth and bones," Shippou gulped, hiding behind Kenshin. "I didn't think there was anything else like Kikyo..."

__

Earth and bones - she thinks he's an ogre-witch's creation? Kenshin thought, gently prying Shippou off his leg as he moved to guard Duo's back._ Not far wrong, if what Shishou taught me of vampires all those years ago is true; demon-spirits spawned within the bodies of the dead, stealing their memories to better prey on humans. I wonder whose memories this one walks with. He seems to know some elements of tactics_. The vampire and his followers - some vampires, some transformed humans - had cut off their avenues of escape while still out of ki-sensing range, only closing in gradually. By the time he and Duo had realized they were being herded, they were here.

__

But if this creature thinks Duo is terrified... Kenshin hid a smile. Sometimes it was useful being small and slender as a girl. Spike hadn't more than glanced his way. One breath, and he could sever the vampire's head from its shoulders.

He _wanted_ to. So badly. The rurouni wished, above all, to protect - and to protect her, at any cost to himself. This Spike was not under enchantment, unlike the transformed children he'd influenced into herding them. The vampire was undead, something that should not walk the face of the world, and even the gentle wanderer longed to return what was left of a human in it to the peace of death.

But that would mean disrupting his companion's plan. And she had one. He could feel it in the tension of her muscles, the fierce, almost gleeful determination in her ki.

__

I have sought her through years and lands and death itself. I will trust her now. Reaching within, he shifted his focus to the cold fury that was Battousai.

Spike backhanded Duo across the face, smirking. "I love it-"

Something _thuck_ed into flesh. Spike froze. Coughed.

Eyes wide, the vampire staggered back, a vibrating knife smoking in his left kidney.

"We-ll, whaddya know." Duo's tone lilted, playful as Okita Souji about to slash his way through a squad of Ishin Shishi. The rising red mark on her cheek only accented the cold, berserk glitter in the Gundam pilot's twilight eyes. "Bullets no, energy blade _yes_." Palming a metal cylinder from her jacket, she snapped it out into a long handle, green scythe-blade humming to fiery life. "Welcome to hell!"

Spike scrabbled back. The monsters roared. Vampires charged-

Duo laughed. And attacked.

* * *

Surrounded by pieces of monsters that had been transformed innocents, demons drawn out by the chaos, children cursed into enchanted forms, and echoes of half-alien memory, Rupert Giles couldn't imagine ever laughing again.__

"Bleedin' 'ell!"

The sight of one bleached-blond vampire running as if his unlife depended on it, however, did it.

"Everybody who sees me dies!" Laughing maniacally, a teenage girl in a black priest's outfit and long chestnut braid was only steps behind, green energy-scythe swooping within inches of William the Bloody's black duster. In her wake a young redhead in gi and hakama carried a little fox-tailed girl under his left arm, right hand filled with a gleaming katana as he fended off any creatures that sought to come at them from behind.

Xander tensed, shoving his sword back into its saya in a screech of fang transforming back to battered steel. "Shippou!"

The fox-girl sniffed the air, and squirmed out of the redhead's arm. "Inuyasha!"

"Kami, runt, where have you been?" Xander snatched her up in a rough hug, then pried her off to hold her at arm's length. "Been looking for you all night, you brat - aw, no. Not the tears, come on, can't this wait for Kagome..."

"Waah!"

Sighing, Xander wrapped her in a gentler hug, letting the kitsune's nose nestle into white hair. "Hey. I'm right here, runt. You're okay."

The redheaded swordsman stopped, evidently torn between checking on the kitsune and following Buffy. Who made the issue moot by stopping to catch her breath, still laughing, as she watched Spike race out of view.

"Good lord," Giles managed, listening to the crash of the frantic vampire through hedges and hoping he'd impale himself on a handy branch. "I believe he may have set a new land-speed record..."

__

That ki!

Impossible. Unbelievable. Unmistakable.

As unmistakable as the cross-shaped scar on the redhead's left cheek.

__

"Battousai."

Amber eyes whipped toward his growl, fading to violet puzzlement. Lightening back toward blue, shot with amber fire, as the Bakumatsu's most feared assassin measured his own ki in turn. "Saitou."

It was like opening a floodgate.

__

Night and fire; the scent of white plums and blood. Ikeda-ya had slain many of the Ishin Shishi, yet somehow he knew the most dangerous were escaping...

Red hair blazing across the battle of Toba Fushimi, cutting down his comrades like ripe grain, facing him for a few furious, thrilling moments... Yet when he sought the assassin after the battle was over, only a sword remained on the field the Imperialists had won...

Ten years, and Choushuu's deadliest assassin hid in a quiet smile and a ridiculously bright red gi, standing framed in a dojo doorway, wide blue eyes of an innocent swordswoman beside him. "No matter what you say, this one refuses _to take more life."_

"Is that so?" He stroked his fingers along his katana, taking the odd, awkward-looking stance of Gatotsu. "Then come. I will deny everything that you are..."

Decades, and he rested his creaky bones on a dojo engawa, eyeing red hair still bright despite its threads of gray. "Tokio tries to tell me otherwise... but it won't be long now. For either of us."

"Perhaps it is for the better," his old foe said, hand over a bandage on one wrinkled wrist. Not bitter, only sad. "I do not know our country anymore. Cars, factories, invading China... I fear for our children. Our grandchildren."

"You trusted Hiko with Kenji. Trust him with them." He frowned at Battousai's wound. "Taking up the blade once more and not telling me?"

"No. Shishou," Himura shrugged. "A promise to be kept, he said. For the future..."

"Himura," Giles breathed now, reeling. "How... why?"

"You know him?" Buffy jumped in.

"I did once." The Watcher shook himself, setting aside memories of the leader of the Third Shinsengumi Unit. Or trying to. _The wolf who would not yield, even in the peace of Meiji. The blood-thirst within me, that hated the straitjacket of English customs and Watchers' tradition so fiercely it created Ripper. And now he has a hellhound as his ally._

__

No! This is my _life!_

"But this is not the time, nor the place; that it is not," Battousai said firmly, sheathing his blade.

Yet not calmly, Giles noted, unable to douse a thrill of dark excitement. The narrowed eyes, flickering so easily toward amber. The shadow-swift flow of movement as Himura scanned the night for any other threats to their group. The automatic move to guard their weaker flank, a swordsman's ki and subtle wave of hand gathering up the others into a war-party ready for a run through the deadly night...

__

However he's returned, it's pared him to the core. The hitokiri is back.

And may the gods have mercy on anything that stands against us.

"Calm." Jenny touched a hand to his shoulder, radiating peace. "Remember who you are."

Shutting off her scythe, Buffy cocked her head in a very un-Buffy-like move, eyeing Giles carefully. "Y'know, lady, something tells me that _might_ just be the problem."

"Depends," Angel said dryly. "Buffy... Duo," he amended at her glower. "Are you all right?" The vampire glanced toward Battousai. "Who is that guy?"

"Fang-boy, Himura," Buffy said shortly, hand almost reaching for her scythe. "Himura Kenshin, guy who calls himself Angel and morphed into real, sharp-toothed weirdness in what _he_ says is my family kitchen. Which is crazy. 'Cause my family's dead. A _long_ time ago."

"Your name is _Buffy Summers_," Angel said with fraying patience. "Your parents are divorced. You live with your mom, here in Sunnydale. We've been seeing each other off and on since you moved here last year-"

Battousai tensed at that, though a stranger wouldn't have seen so much as a flicker in his set amber stare. Giles felt the shock and hurt like a knife of ice in the hitokiri's ki, melting into grief and determination. _Why?_ the Watcher wondered. _You've only just met the girl, Battousai; I grant you her ki is bright as Kaoru's, but it's not as if she were yours-_

__

No, Giles realized, more memories falling into place as Duo's anger scraped against his own ki. _Not simply_ like _Kaoru's._

__

Gods, Battousai. What kami did you mortally offend before you were born as Kenshin Himura? Only you could land in a situation this insane!

"-You're the Slayer." Angel went on. "I gave you that cross when I first met you, outside the Bronze-"

__

"Teme! Urusai!" Twilight eyes were dark and dangerous. "Stop lying to me!" She snapped her scythe out, green energy casting a vicious glow across her cross and black jacket. "Or we'll see if Shinigami can kill the dead twice!"

__

"Maa, maa." Battousai touched the back of her hand, careful not to block her swing. "You remember otherwise."

The chestnut braid whipped over black leather. "Sister Helen gave me this cross." Her voice dropped, low enough that even hellhound ears had to strain to hear. "Last thing she could give me."

Battousai nodded once. "Wait," he said plainly, meeting the ensouled vampire's gaze. "If you do care for her, then wait."

"_If_ I care for her?" Angel said pointedly, glaring at how close they stood. "And just who do you think are?"

"And just _why_ are you thinking of popcorn, Rupert?" Jenny muttered, shooting him a suspicious look.

So she was still Jedi enough to sort his emotions out of his shielded ki. That could be useful. Not to mention entertaining. "Angelus, Scourge of Europe; Battousai, Demon of Kyoto," Giles murmured back. "This could actually be a fair fight."

"Fair-" Jenny swallowed. "Tell me that's not what it looks like."

__

Two very stubborn young men, each sizing up a rival they never expected? Oh, it is. "Ah." Fangs showed in his grin. "But Jedi detest lies, do they not?"

"What the _hell?_" Xander's growl cut across the growing tension. "You're a girl!"

"Well, duh!" Shippou jumped out of his arms, fox ears flattened. "I've _always_ been a girl!"

"The hell you have!" Xander barked.

"Have too!"

"Have not!"

"Have too!"

"I say!" Willow waved her wand in warning. "That's enough from the both of you. Obviously, _one_ of you must be mistaken..." She trailed off, thinking hard.

"Still think I'm crazy?" Cordelia said wryly.

A few whispered words of Latin, and color like oil rainbows rippled out and away from her wand. "There _is_ a disturbance in the magic of this night," Willow said reluctantly. "It emanates from..."

"That way," four voices said as one, three hands and one wand settling on the direction of Sunnydale's business district.

"So dark magic feels like a disturbance in the Force," Jenny noted as Willow gave them a frankly curious look. "And Rupert feels it, and you feel it..." She eyed Himura.

"You're carrying a magic sword, and you have to ask?" Xander snorted. "Some samurai you are. Tengu or youkai - whatever their styles are, they come right out of the demon realms. They can lock into ki, sense it without smelling it." He sniffed the wind. "Doesn't smell like a youkai, though. Which means some human idiot probably got hold of a jewel shard. Let's go!"

"Hey-!" Jenny's yelp of surprise was cut off, as Xander snatched her and Shippou in a blur of red.

"You were holding out on me!" Buffy's words were left hanging in the air as she and Himura likewise blurred away.

"Not at all, Duo-dono," Kenshin's voice drifted down the wind. "I could not both carry you and Shippou. And you seemed content to terrify Spike with near misses, that you did..."

"Holy-" Angel shut his jaw, raced to keep up as Cordelia took Willow and Giles hauled a mildly protesting Jonathan over his shoulders. "I thought only full-blood youkai could move that fast!"

"Doesn't know much about hanyou, does he?" Cordelia said wryly. Bouncing against her gray-suited shoulder, Willow looked distinctly green.

"Likely not," Giles admitted. "Those references I have on your, er, career in Japan as Angelus include rumors of a few encounters with weaker youkai and tengu, but none with the true taiyoukai."

"I know enough. Hanyou. _Half_-demon," Angel said pointedly. "Meaning half as strong as a full demon. If they have even that much power."

"Indeed. Even accurate, so far as it goes. But given that those who consider themselves true youkai often make a sport of hunting down those who are not, the survivors tend to be rather above average." Giles fell into a steady, ground-eating lope alongside Cordelia, pricking his ears in amusement at Jonathan's low stream of British invective. "Angel. You must remember Buffy is not herself at the moment."

"She trusts him!"

__

Over two centuries old and still a wounded teenager. Giles sighed. "Battousai has a knack for inspiring that. Gods know why." _Not true, old wolf. You_ do _know why. To those who need him, he blazes like a bonfire. The sword which protects. He_ cares.

"You know what costume he's wearing?" Angel demanded.

"Yes." _That of an innocent rurouni_, the Watcher thought dryly.

Angel blew out an aggravated breath, obviously setting his Irish temper aside. "Tell me about it after we fix this." He forced a laugh. "Give me a few hours to get over the bullet holes, and it'll probably even be funny."

__

No, Angel, Giles thought soberly. _I don't think it will be._

But explaining the knot of calamity, confusion, and honor that was Himura Kenshin, Hitokiri Battousai, would have to wait. They had hanyou to catch.

* * *

__

You know, if it weren't for the monsters, the being trapped in my own bod, and the whole evil spell gig, this would be the most fun Halloween of my life, Xander thought gleefully.

Bare feet raced through the night, never missing a step. Wind flowed through long silvery hair like a caress, painting Sunnydale in a rainbow palette of living scents. Shippou and Ms. Calendar were light weights against his back, no more burden than a feather pillow. Wrapped around it all was Inuyasha's hard-won confidence in himself; that with his sword, his claws, and his friends beside him, there was no foe they couldn't defeat.

And to top it all off, he'd left a very unconscious Larry the Pirate King way, way behind, somewhere between Buffy's and the demon-mess.

__

"Pretty," my claws. Long hair doesn't mean faint-in-your-filthy-arms girl, you idiot.

Inuyasha had felt the same, with a large helping of pure glee for the fight and none of Xander's caution at tackling a larger opponent. He'd grinned with full fangs as he swung one casual, pulled punch at the pirate's jaw.

The football player had gone down like a ton of bricks.

If this wasn't Heaven, it was a pretty good prequel.

__

I just wish it was me doing the rescuing, here...

Then again, maybe it was. Sort of. Xander could feel the overlay that was _Inuyasha_ reaching into his own mind every time they met a new person, as if it were checking his own instincts for basic reactions; trust, avoid or attack.

__

Never would have thought I trusted Cordelia.

But he had, which had kept Inuyasha from automatically taking a swing at the vampire detective just on general principles. Just as his reluctant acceptance of Deadboy as an ally had just barely stopped the hanyou from slicing Angel into a demonic vampire jigsaw puzzle.

__

Darn.

Then again, maybe it was just as well. While the manga or anime Inuyasha could have taken Angel with one clawed hand behind his back, Xander wasn't sure _his_ Inuyasha could.

__

That was Skinner, one of Lilith's more powerful Lilin, Xander knew, recalling the Marvel villain that had tried to make Johnny Blaze's life a living hell. _I took him one-on-one and came out on top. Which is cool, way cool - but I had to work for it. And when it comes to strength and speed, I know Skinner's nowhere near Sesshoumaru's class._

Which had left him considering two options. Either whatever this spell was, wasn't duplicating the costume characters exactly... or someone had made sure the good guys had a handicap.

__

Not sure which one sucks more. Xander's white-furred ears twitched, catching a very Duo-like chortle of glee in speed, and under that, near-soundless footsteps coming up behind him. _Man. That kitsune-hanyou can_ move!

"Himura treat you okay, Shippou?" Inuyasha demanded. "Or do I have to-"

Teeth gnawed on his head before he pried the kitsune off. "He was nice, you jerk!" Shippou huffed. "Slashed up the ningen sorcerer that had me, licked out my wounds, kept the bad guys away from me until he got Duo to take the wards off..."

"Slashed?" Ms. Calendar said warily.

"Yup! The sorcerer - he called himself Bengal - he cut me. With a licked blade. Needed kitsune blood for some kind of dark magic, trying to bind the Demon of Kyoto to serve him. Only it must not have worked too good. Kenshin took his head right off!" The transformed girl said gleefully. "Blood _everywhere_."

__

You know, when this spell wears off, this kid's going to need serious _therapy._ Xander thought about that a second. _Hell. We're all going to need it. Only I'm not exactly sure how we'd find a shrink without getting arrested. "Hi, Doc; I need to talk to you about this guy whose throat I tore out. Well, it wasn't exactly me, I was under a spell... um, who are you calling, and why are those guys in white coats carrying those shiny needles?"_

"We'd better slow down," Ms. Calendar said almost in his ear. "We're getting close."

"Huh. Close to what? Getting shopped to death?" But Inuyasha slowed his pace, gold eyes glancing about the ranks of modern businesses now lining the street, all unusually dark and empty. Merchants just didn't close this early in Kagome's time; not unless they were under a spell to _not_ make money...

"Put me down," Buffy said in Duo's most serious on-mission tone. "I want a look-see before we get any closer."

"As do I." Kenshin set her down. "Left, or right?"

"What the heck. Left. Only I say you take right, we circle and meet, then get back here; that way, whoever's in there doesn't catch on that he's being scoped out." She tossed her braid back, giving Inuyasha a measuring look. "That okay with you, or were you just planning to break in and start smashing things?"

"Keh." The hanyou cracked his knuckles, jerked a clawed thumb toward Kenshin, then Ms. Calendar. "If they can't tell what it is this close, it must be some kind of foreign magic. Which means it might be tough to break, or easy, or just plain weird." He cocked an ear toward the running steps heralding the rest of their group, blocks away. "So go take your look and get your damn braid back here so we can _all_ smash it."

She threw him a jaunty salute, faded into the leftward shadows. Himura ghosted away in a space between breaths; Inuyasha could just barely scent him tracing a path around and right. To the rest of his senses, the redhead didn't even exist. _Ninja trained? Or what?_ Inuyasha wondered. _Hell, he could sneak up on most demons!_

The others caught up a few minutes later; Willow crouching with her head down to take stomach-settling breaths, Jonathan rubbing what had to be a sore area of chest that had rested on Giles' shoulder. "Where's B-Duo?" Angel burst out.

"Scouting," Ms. Calendar stepped in. "Not sure what the point is, I'd sense anything waiting for us in the area-"

"Maybe not. Not if you're a Jedi, anyway," Angel pointed out. "Read the recent books. There's some things that can hide from the Force."

"Yslamiri," the computer teacher slapped her forehead, looking annoyed with herself. Her hand moved almost involuntarily toward her saber. "You're right. I forgot."

"I take it they are predatory?" Giles ventured.

"Predatory, claws, fangs, temper like a wolverine having the worst day of its life - your usual man-eating monster type aliens," Angel agreed. "Not that I think there's one here, but..."

"The precedent exists," Willow finished, straightening. Her features were still pale, but set in classic Resolve Face. "I must admit, I'm not familiar with muggle surveillance procedures."

"Hey, works for me," Buffy said cheerfully, black cap pulled low as she sauntered out of the nearest alley. "I don't how you do that voodoo hoodoo either. Which I'm thinking you guys should check for, 'cause I didn't see anything even _close_ to a halfway decent security system on the place. Sheesh! I mean, it's got to be some kind of undercover op; hello? Costume shop? Not your average one-stop black-op military shop, even for Ozzies. But the _least_ the guy could've done was put a fingerprint lock on his back door." She buffed her nails on her black shirt. "Not that that'd slow _me_ down, natch."

As one, the group blinked. "When this is over, you really must tell me about Duo," Giles said in stunned awe.

__

And she's being laid-back and polite, for Duo Maxwell, Xander thought, equally stunned. _Why does that not give me a happy?_

Probably because, while Buffy had only seen an episode or two in passing, _he'd_ seen the whole series. Up to and including "Waltz", in all its weirdness. Which meant he had a pretty good grasp of the unadulterated manic humor, ruthlessness, and infiltration skills bar none that was Duo Maxwell, the self-styled God of Death.

__

She's not a Slayer right now, G-man. She's Shinigami. Can we run now?

"Duo-dono is correct." Kenshin stepped soundlessly out of the night. "I have little experience with spells, yet there is a... feeling... to the place beyond that of the youki pervading this night. It seems to linger near the walls; perhaps some sort of wards? And there is a strong ki within, that yet feels as if it has spent much energy."

"Most likely our dark sorcerer. Step back." Willow raised her wand, whispering a subtle chant. A trail of blue fire shot from her wand, skirling over the shop's walls and windows in flashes of brilliant azure.

__

"Iie!" Kenshin snapped, startled out of English.

"Son of a-" Buffy had a dull black throwing knife in her hand and a totally disgusted expression on her face.

"Damn it!" Cordelia hissed.

"Are you _out_ of your fucking _mind?_" Inuyasha growled low. Not that he thought keeping his voice down would make a difference; any spell-caster worth his scrolls should have seen that!

"Warded, indeed," Willow concluded, apparently unconcerned that she'd blown their element of surprise to hell and gone. "But while the barriers hold strong within the walls, they do have one weakness." She pointed at the shop door, with its _Closed_ sign on prominent display.

Inuyasha drew Tetsuseiga, steel transforming to the razor-edged fang. "Then I say we knock."

* * *

Humming, Ethan Rayne polished a silver ceremonial athame, reveling in the chaotic reports cropping up on the battery-operated TV he'd brought into the back room.

"...The National Weather Service is still unable to explain the Force Five waterspout that briefly touched down on Sunnydale's beaches, carrying off an unknown number of Halloween beach-partygoers..."

"...Mayor Wilkins remains unavailable for comment, after the west half of City Hall was destroyed in a violent explosion. Reports of a very wily coyote carrying dynamite remain unsubstantiated at this time..."

"...Zombies! What seem to be flesh-eating zombies with skinless, bloody attack-trained Dobermans are on the rampage through downtown, currently abandoning their pursuit of hapless bystanders to face off with a determined woman in white and a man who's just thrown off his red-and-white cloak - I've never seen any sword move that fast!-"

"...And where, I ask, is Animal Control? Bizarre as it may seem, people, black falcons with white 'V' markings, giant sand-colored cats, and odd, white or black horses appear to have been accosting innocent civilians who then act _very_ strange, even for Halloween. This reporter's own print counterpart was kidnapped by a bizarre white horse with blue eyes. I don't care what you think you've been 'Chosen' for, Gary, get back here!-"

Ethan admired the fine shine of silver, _tch_ing as he saw a trace of blood caught up near the grip. Careless, careless; he'd definitely need to go more slowly with the next sacrifice.

Ah, but even that couldn't ruin his good mood. He'd cast spells of chaos before, but this one, cast on the very Hellmouth itself... oh, it was lovely. A pity it was meant to end at dawn. Or at least, at _a_ dawn, the background of the Gaulish enchantment was a little unclear-

__

"Kaze no Kizu!"

The world exploded.

When the ringing in his ears died down to a low roar, Ethan realized he was flattened beside the statue of Janus, covered in debris, pieces of shelving, and shreds of the curtain that had blocked off the back room from view. What was left of his sundered front door was still smoking, embedded in the wall within inches of where his head had been.

"Anybody home?" the same sardonic voice called out.

Ethan tried to stifle a groan.

"Indeed there is," Rupert's grim tones floated back to him.

"I'm going to take a wild guess here, and say the green glowing head-statue falls into the not-good category," the Slayer put in.

"Janus. A Roman god," the Watcher bit out.

"Mythical," the formerly meek redhead said in dry, proper tones.

"Perhaps in your reality, Professor," Rupert allowed. "Here, it represents the division of self. Male and female. Light and dark."

"Chunky and creamy." Smirking, Ethan got to his feet, brushing off bits of debris. "Oh no, sorry, that's peanut butter."

Dark eyes bored into his from the front doorway, glowing with red hints of flame as Rupert's gloved hand twitched toward his katana. Behind him crowded a dazzling mix of characters; Ethan saw fox ears and dog, green Jedi robes and a gray suit, swords and wands and one green-glowing scythe. "Hello, Ethan."

The chaos sorcerer smirked wider. _Found some bits of your own memory, did you?_ Not that surprising; Watchers were apparently trained to resist mental manipulation, just in case something made it past their Slayers. Which meant he had a wonderful opportunity for fun. "Hello, Ripper."

Giles growled.

"What? No hug?" _Not that you can. Though you don't know that yet._

"I'm just surprised I didn't guess it was you," Rupert said coldly. "This stunt stinks of Ethan Rayne."

"Yes, it does, doesn't it?" Ethan folded the knife into his sleeve. Never could tell when a silver dagger might come in handy. "Genius. The very embodiment of 'be careful what you wish for'."

"It's sick, brutal, and it harms the innocent." Fangs showed in a snarl.

"And we all know you are the champion of innocence and all things pure and good, Rupert," Ethan mused. "It's quite a little act you've got going here, old man." He gave the hellhound in human form a long look. "Or should I say, _had_."

Points of ruby flared in dark eyes. "It's no act. It's who I am."

"The Watcher, sniveling, tweed-clad guardian of the Slayer and her kin? I think not. I know who you are, Rupert, and I know what you're capable of." Ethan shrugged, darkly amused. "And after this night... so will they."

Rupert's gaze went cold. "Break the spell, Ethan. Then leave this place and never come back."

Ah, Ripper. Still trying to hide, while the Watcher negotiated. Well, best to play along. It was more entertaining. "Why should I? What's in the bargain for me?"

"You get to live."

Ethan snorted. "Oh, Rupert, you're scaring me."

"Good." Rupert stepped forward. "Now, to end this-" Static zapped.

"What the hell?" The Slayer's outburst was accompanied by a myriad of smaller zaps, as she jabbed the butt of her scythe at the wards protecting the empty air of the front doorway. "Some kind of forcefield?"

"In a manner of speaking." Ethan chuckled. "Oh, come now, Ripper. You didn't think I'd let _heroes_ loose on this night without making sure not _one_ of them could touch me-"

Chill steel pressed against his throat, carrying the unmistakable _feel_ of an otherworldly aura.

"You forgot your back door, Rayne-san," an amber-eyed redhead said softly.

__

No, the chaos sorcerer thought in one moment of crystal clarity. _I didn't._

__

Janus preserve me. This is not _a costume._

__

And if the wards didn't hold it out - it's not a true demon, either. Japanese magic, blended with mine, and an aura of blood... Bengal's demon!

Bengal's demon... is a hanyou.

Oh gods, that bloody fool-!

* * *

__

"Dliw sdniw tfil em tfola!" - "Wild winds lift me aloft!"

__

Konban wa - "Good night."

__

taiyoukai - "lordly youkai"; much more powerful than average.

__

kyuuketsuki - vampire.

__

jyaki - aura of demon power.

__

youki - demon energy.

__

teme - "you bastard".

__

urusai - "Shut up".

__

maa, maa - calm down.

__

tengu - "goblins"; karasu tengu, specifically, were legendary for (among other things) teaching certain sword-styles to human heroes.

__

youkai - supernatural creature; may be translated as demon, wraith, monster.

__

hanyou - "half-demon".

__

iie - no.


	3. Chapter 3

"Tell me how to stop the spell, Ethan."

"And you said Ripper was long gone." Ethan couldn't tear his gaze from molten gold. _This creature_ will _kill me. Unless... if Bengal didn't know, perhaps Rupert doesn't as well._ "You wouldn't force a child to kill, would you?"

"Battousai's killed more people in one night than you or I ever managed in all our arrogance and idiocy." Ripper's voice was hard, angry; a crust of stone over molten lava. "People are hurt. People are dying. I _will_ stop you."

"There has been enough blood shed this night." The redheaded demon's voice was level, controlled. "Tell us, and live."

__

A killer. But then, Ripper is too, isn't he? And he's so much fun _to play with._ Ethan smirked. "Say 'pretty please'."

"Oh, the hell with this!" the Slayer snapped out, fishing something out of her jacket. Something small, and dark, and attached to a pin the Slayer pulled free in one swift snag of a finger in a ring. "Fire in the hole!"

__

Fire in the- dear gods!

Steel vanished from his neck. Something rattled off Janus' pedestal.

The back room exploded.

* * *

The world blurred. Sharpened. Blurred again.

Snapped back into focus, as Buffy kneaded her forehead and groaned. _Where am I, and why are my ears ringing?_

Halloween. The costume shop. Duo's grenade.

__

Ohmigod! "Kenshin!" _Duo_ might have believed the redhead had enough sense to bolt before the blast went off, but having spent the last few hours submerged under the Gundam pilot's bloody mindset, Buffy could justifiably say Duo was just a _little_ bit insane. _Met his best friend by shooting him... why do I_ not _think that's going to cut any ice with Angel?_ "Kenshin, if you didn't make it out of there, so help me, I'll kill you!"

Tired laughter tickled her ears. The redheaded swordsman picked himself off the ground beside her, eyes violet and gentle again. "It'd seem redundant, that it would." He looked her over carefully. "Buffy-dono?"

"Just Buffy." She looked away quickly; that odd softness in his gaze was doing funny things to her insides. "Guys? Giles? Ms. Calendar?" She swallowed. "Angel?"

Various groans, gasps, and more than a few curses reassured her that the Scoobies and their accumulated semi-innocent bystanders were intact. More or less. Angel was gingerly plucking splinters from his shoulders, giving her a wary, wild-eyed look. "Grenade. Wood. Not a good combination," the ensouled vampire pointed out.

Buffy winced. "Sorry."

"Oooo. Pretty fireworks," Xander said dazedly, wobbling up from where he'd been crouched protectively over a young kitsune kit. Shook himself, blunted shards of wood falling off his red haori. "Buffy, from all of our hearts, I thank you. You always care enough to bring out the very best." He helped the little girl to her now-human bare feet. "Kid? You okay?"

Fake fox ears attached to a hairpiece slid off a little brunette's head. She looked at them, up at the strange teen holding her, and shivered. "I want my _mommy!_"

"No kidding." White ears flattened against the piercing wail, Xander gingerly pushed her towards Ms. Calendar. "Um, Ms. Calendar? Maybe you could-?"

"I'm a computer teacher, not a den mother." But Jenny cradled the little girl against her green robes, drawing two fingers over her forehead. "Ssh. It was just a bad dream. It's all right now..."

The little girl sniffled. Yawned. Nestled into Jenny's shoulder, eyes fluttering closed.

"Boy, kids can sleep through _anything_," Cordelia said, amazed. Fingers found a splinter, yanked it out of the back of her hand with a wince.

"Save that terrified children usually do not succumb to slumber so easily," Jonathan noted soberly, brushing dust off his suit. Flushed. "That is - um - what I meant was-"

"Cordelia!" Willow squeaked, lowering her wand; the shield McGonagall had raised against flying debris for herself, Jonathan, and Duo vanished in a hum of silver magic. "Your hand!"

"What _about_ my-" Cordelia looked down at the drop of welling blood left behind by blasted wood. Blood which was quickly vanishing, absorbed into pale skin as her flesh became whole once more. "Uh. Um?"

Face set, Giles pulled off his left glove, closing clawed fingers into a shaky fist. "Dear Lord."

__

"Dear Lord." From Giles. Buffy swallowed dryly, gingerly poking fingers into her hair to tug off Duo's chestnut braid. Encountering not the rough scratch of a wig, but warm, soft hair that stung when she pulled. _As in, Sunnydale has fallen into the ninth level of_ hell._ Again_.

"But - the kid - uh - and I don't hear anymore screaming-" Xander protested, furry ears flicking back and forth as he listened to the night. "Oh _god_ that feels weird."

"Ethan," Giles growled, striding through the shattered doorway.

"Long gone, I fear. His ki is nowhere near, that it is not." Kenshin stepped aside as part of a counter hurtled out the door, flung by a furious hellhound. "What is it you seek?"

"Ethan cast the spell here," Giles bit out. "There should be notes. Scrolls. _Something_."

"Right." Buffy gathered up the Scoobies with a look. "C'mon, let's see what I didn't blow up." _Cloth bits, shelf bits, broken plastic swords - few more orc costumes, and Rayne would've replayed Helm's Deep for real..._

"Here!" Willow called out a few minutes later. "It's kind of in pieces, but..."

"Bark? How very-" Giles frowned. "But it has the scent, yes - oh gods, that _is_ disturbing."

"Weird woodcuts-are-us?" Cordelia craned her head as the pair started gathering pieces. "I thought, you know, funky spells were in those musty old books of yours."

"Not in ancient Roman Gaul." Giles took the box Xander handed over, started placing bits of slivered, ink-lettered wood glued to bark inside. "Which seems to be the origin of these pieces; the lettering is Roman, but the language is definitely of Brythonic derivation..."

"Rupert, we'll listen to the etymology lesson later, we promise," Jenny said firmly. "Can you fix it?"

"Not now, and not here," the Watcher answered. "We need to - assemble the puzzle, as it were. And I strongly suspect I'll need my books to make sense of it. Chaos spells are esoteric and highly idiosyncratic by their very nature."

"So we're library-bound? Good." Buffy took a deep breath. "Okay. Willow? Ms. Calendar? Can you two make with the research with Giles? The rest of us have some freaked-out kids to find." She let out a tired breath. "Don't know exactly how..."

"Xander's got a nose," Cordelia put in. "I've got pretty good ears. Red over there can pick out ki. And we've got Angel and Bond over there to bat clean-up. We'll find them."

"Kenshin, Cordelia-dono," the swordsman said politely. "Not 'Red'."

Buffy tensed, trying to figure out how to draw Angel's attention. _He knew his own name? Outside of two Jedi mind tricks,_ none _of us knew who we were. Not while we were under the spell._

"Whatever," Cordelia waved it off. "Where are you from, anyway? I thought I knew all the local losers by sight. Not that that means much at the moment..." She took a closer look at Xander. "Huh. Outside of the hair and fangs, you still look like you." Walking closer, she lifted a curious hand. "Only these are _definitely_ cuter..."

"Hey! Not the ears!"

"I'm sorry!" Willow blurted as fingers scuffled with fur. "I'm sorry about the spell I forgot Gryffindors don't do subtle 'cause subtle's Slytherin and Gryffindors aren't Slytherin even if it kills them which, wow, you think it would, I read about basilisks in some of Giles' books and they're just _nasty_, only that's not how the Potter books are written-"

"Willow," Buffy tried.

"-And I didn't _mean_ to, but I couldn't stop her and the professor was so sure she was right-"

"Wills!" Dodging out from under Cordelia's rubbing fingers, Xander grabbed her by the shoulders. "Breathe."

"But-"

"When one works undercover, the most unlikely acts seem rational," Jonathan said firmly. "This was rather farther under than any agent would strive for. No one blames you for your actions." He stopped. Shook his head, as if he could rattle Bond loose. "Mr. Giles, I really hope you can fix this. Sounding British in California - it's too freaky!" A speculative gleam touched green eyes. "Though you know, I think I know how to drive now..."

"No driving," Buffy said firmly. "Driving without a license is of the bad. Driving like Bond, without weirdoes in wheelchairs with white cats and razor-Frisbee hat-throwing henchmen in hot pursuit, is of the evil."

"Besides, we don't have a car," Cordelia pointed out practically.

Jonathan's gleam deepened. "Oh... _that's_ not a problem..."

Buffy shot him a quelling look. It barely dented his grin. "And hotwiring a car is _definitely_ of the evil." No matter how much fun it sounded like. _At least I think I'd drive better than Heero. That guy's a menace in anything with wheels._

"Quite," Giles said dryly. "Your targets are on foot, in any case. Seeking them by vehicle would give you no advantage."

"Why not?" Willow asked, puzzled.

"I'll... explain as we sort this." The Watcher traded a firm look with Kenshin. "Look after them, Battousai."

Kenshin nodded.

"You, look after _us?_" Cordelia said sharply as they headed outside. "What's up with that?"

"Giles-san knows I have... memories of searching for the lost," Kenshin said quietly. "He is correct; a car would not be of aid. Frightened children will not stay near roads. They will flee them, flee from any source of strangers, and hide."

She rolled her eyes. "Then how is anybody supposed to find them?"

"Children believe parents can do anything, Cordelia-dono." A shadowed smile touched his face. "It is a hard lesson, to learn they cannot."

"So Giles knows who you went as," Angel said coolly.

__

"Hai."

"Who?"

Kenshin tensed slightly as they reached a sidewalk. Sighed, and shook his head. "The Hitokiri Battousai."

"Battousai the Manslayer?" Xander yelped. "You went as some kind of demon assassin? What the hell were you thinking?"

"You, too, went as a hanyou, Xander-san," Kenshin said mildly.

"Well, yeah - but not an assassin!"

"And not that assassin," Angel said grimly. "I'd like to know where you found any mention of him. I thought the Meiji government tried to bury any whisper of their Bakumatsu assassins in unmarked graves. Usually along with the assassins. Especially him."

"And especially him why?" Buffy said carefully. _The Bakumatsu. Meiji. Hitokiri. I've never heard those words before, and yet - they're familiar. Somehow._

Angel looked at the redhead, obviously wrestling with his conscience. "Let's just say, he was really good at what he did."

"What Angel-san means to say, is that for five years, from 1863 to 1868, Battousai made the streets of Kyoto run red with blood," Kenshin said softly.

"Okay, that was a news flash I _really_ could have survived missing," Cordelia grumbled.

"Oh, and Tatsuhiko Shido would have won the nice guy award a couple centuries back?" Xander put in. "Funny, the anime I saw seemed to say years of slaughtering people."

"That's different!" Cordelia defended herself. "He stopped. After he remembered he used to be human, not just a vampire."

"Details, details..."

"And like your Shido, Battousai, too, ceased to kill," Kenshin stated. "Once the Revolution was won, at the battle of Toba Fushimi, he left his sword on the field and vanished, never to be heard from again."

"Not by humans," Angel contradicted him. "I heard the local vampires tried to jump him a few times later, whenever rumors of a redheaded swordsman surfaced again. They usually didn't come back."

"And vampires would be going after an ex-assassin why?" Buffy cocked her head at Angel.

"He was a Hiten Mitsurugi master."

"Which tells me exactly zip," she pointed out. _I think. It's weird. It sounds familiar - but not. And it's not from Duo._ "You going cryptic guy again?"

"They're not just demon assassins," Angel clarified. "They're assassins of demons."

"Only in self-defense," Kenshin put in. "And defense of those who cannot protect themselves."

"Basically defined as humans in general," Angel stated. "I don't know how much of this is true, but rumor has it that somewhere back in the Warring States era, some hanyou swordsman took up with a bunch of human demon slayers. Between them they built a whole style just to kill demons."

"To protect," Kenshin corrected. "Human or demon."

"Whatever. Supposedly it's the reason Japan's almost never had a Slayer," Angel went on. "The masters tend to hide who they are. Battousai's only as well known as he is because he took sides in the Revolution."

"Well known?" A red brow went up, curious. "I believe you said not many had heard of him."

"Not many _humans._ In the night side of things? _Everybody_ heard of him." Angel frowned. "Red hair, cross-shaped scar... okay, I see it. Sort of."

"Sort of?" Xander gave them both a sidelong look.

"Well... all the stories say Battousai drank blood like rainwater, shot fire from his eyes, and swung an enchanted sword that called down lightning. Not to mention, he was eight _shaku_ tall. I think that's about an inch or so under eight feet, American - what's so funny?" Angel asked sharply.

Chuckling softly, Kenshin shook his head. _"Nan demo nai..."_

__

And either he's slipping into Japanese the way Jonathan and Willow are slipping into Giles-speak, Buffy thought, feeling a half-dozen wind-wisps of suspicion knot into one lump of not-quite-right, _or-_

__

K'so.

And that was _definitely_ Duo.

__

He doesn't just speak Japanese. He moves _Japanese. The same as when I met him. When Xander and Cordy - they're still not moving like_ them, _but they got at least a little of their own bounce back._

__

So. Now what?

"Buffy?" Angel frowned.

"Later," she said, as Cordelia and Kenshin coaxed two little boys dressed as werewolves, a mixed bag of Maximals, and a very determined fairy princess out from under a hedge. "After we get the kids back."

"Word of warning?" Xander quipped, dropping back with them as Cordelia surreptitiously checked that the kids' costumes were just that. "If you want to pound Kenshin, which I have _no_ idea why you want to do that, yet, but - anyway, you'd better stay downwind. Kitsune noses aren't as good as inu, but he'd have to have a face full of pepper spray to miss that."

"Thanks," Buffy said shortly.

"Hey, is it my fault you humans are all nose-blind? Not that you even pay attention to what you do smell." He snorted, folding clawed hands inside his haori sleeves in a very un-Xander-like, nose in the air pose. "No way could anybody whose brain wasn't smothered in hearts and flowers miss graveyard earth and bones over there-"

__

It's just the costume, Buffy told herself through a sudden red haze. _It's just the costume... this is Inuyasha, after all. The classic open mouth, insert foot, get slammed down by 'SIT!'..._

Only Xander hadn't worn a rosary, and they didn't have a helpful miko to put one on. Darn.

__

Guess I'll just have to improvise.

"Um... Buff? What were you going to do with that?" Gold eyes were bugged out wide, as Xander backed up from glowing green energy.

__

Let's find out. "Oh, _Xan_-der," she sing-songed.

No fool, the hanyou bolted.

* * *

Driving home from the Shelter Club gig - which had been way too much more interesting than usual, due to half the crowd suddenly deciding the other half constituted either "faboo clinging material", or "lunch" - a frazzled Oz pulled his van to a stop at a quiet intersection. _At least it's over._

Though the wild-haired guitarist wasn't sure just _what_ was over. At the time it'd been clear as daylight, but now the details were fuzzy, and getting fuzzier. Maybe somebody had slipped something into the punch? Probably one of the Bronze's post-fumigation party cockroaches...

"Are you sure we got it all?" A striking teenage redhead in Gryffindor robes hurried across the intersection, walking next to a brunette Corellian Jedi carrying a snoring little girl in a Shippou outfit and a dark-haired dog-demon with a WWI German outfit and a katana who was carrying... a box. A box?

__

Must be some haul of candy.

The dog demon, who Oz belatedly recognized as a familiar though very fangy librarian, sighed. "I am certain, yes, please try to calm down."

"Trust in the Force," Ms. Calendar nodded.

"Easy for you to say..."

Oz watched them go, dumbstruck. _Whoa. I never thought about how much of a looker Professor McGonagall would have been as a student._ "Who is that girl?"

The road was clear; the guitarist pulled out, heading toward home. Driving carefully; after all, even if trick-or-treating should have been over hours ago, Snyder's "volunteers" were probably still rounding up their sugar-hyped little kids-

__

Red blur foot brake!

"Um... sorry about that," a still-in-costume Xander said sheepishly, perched in a crouch on the hood of his van. "You okay?"

Oz took a second to breathe. Looked at the road. Looked at the characteristic red haori and hakama over the bare toes digging into his van's paint. Looked toward a vanishing flash of green, where Buffy was sheepishly folding up a rod of collapsible black metal. "I'm cool." Wait a second. Was that red hair off on the sidewalk, almost hidden by a gaggle of kids?

Oz turned off the van and jumped out, not sure how the redhead had gotten from there to here, but not really caring if it got him a chance to try when he wasn't tongue-tied. "Um - miss-"

Violet eyes turned toward him, and a red brow went up.

"Sorry," Oz said without skipping a beat. If the dark blue gi and gray hakama weren't enough of a clue, the paired swords were a dead giveaway. _Not from Hogwarts. Darn._ "Thought you were someone else."

"That is a problem on this night, is it not?" Violet narrowed a little, studying him; relaxed into a friendly smile. "It is good to see you."

Oz almost blinked. That smile... felt like the one his mother had given him once, years ago, when a leaf-stained and much-younger Oz had finally emerged from an hours-long unannounced trek into the wilds of a nearby park. "Do I know you?"

The swordsman gave him a minimal shrug. "Not yet."

Ah. New student, then. "Cool."

"Hey!" A gray-suited Cordelia in a surprisingly flattering lavender hairstyle waved at him, then pointed at the van, red ribbon cravat fluttering in the breeze. "Not like I care if you want to sabotage what little is left of your social life, but if the cops haul my ex-boyfriend's band partner in for illegal parking, the whole school is going to hear about it!"

"She's right, young one," the swordsman said firmly. "Don't get caught."

"Right." Stifling the odd urge to shake his head, Oz started up his van and drove off. Young one? From a guy who didn't look any older than he was?

And why did he feel like he ought to know that voice?

__

"...Don't get caught next time."

Pulling into his own driveway, Oz frowned at that whisper of something that wasn't quite a memory. _Must've met him_ somewhere... _he's out with Buffy and crew, Mr. Giles should know who he is. I can ask him._

Which had nothing to do with the fact that a certain redheaded Gryffindor was last seen walking with said sword-carrying librarian, and might actually be somewhere in the vicinity when he went to ask. Nothing. At all.

Not.

__

Whoa. Backtrack that thought. Mr. Giles was wearing a katana?

Hadn't looked plastic, either. Any more than Buffy's redheaded swordsman's _daisho_.

Maybe the library wasn't such an uncool place to hang out after all...

* * *

"Yes, yes, a very long night," Giles said firmly, handing the yawning little girl in a kitsune's blue and orange costume over to her dazed parents; just one of many sets of reunited families on this oddest of all Sunnydale nights. "Straight home would be best, I agree. Try to detour around the intersection of Laguna and Elm Street, there seems to have been some sort of - disturbance..." Which was, perhaps, the tamest word he could use to describe their confrontation with the three costumed Lilin and uncounted other true demons drawn to the fray.

Three innocents in costume, of which two were most likely dead at his children's hands.

__

I only pray it hasn't sunk in yet. Under the juvenile humor, Xander is as resilient as they come, but Cordelia... she's far more fragile than she would allow us to realize.

Which was precisely why he'd sent Battousai with them, rather than hauling the hitokiri into a handy alley and asking a set of very pointed questions. His children came first; and if anyone could protect them from their own wounded souls, Himura would.

__

Not a decision Saitou would make, Giles knew. _But I am not Saitou. Not in this lifetime._

Though he could feel the Miburou's cold fury rising closer to the surface with each set of dazed parental eyes. Couldn't they see? Couldn't they hear? Didn't they _know_ how close their flesh and blood had come to grisly death?

A hand that had been more familiar with a keyboard than a sword rested on his shoulder. Calm washed over him like spring rain, quelling the low growl in his throat. "It's not their fault, Rupert," Jenny said softly, alien fragrance still scenting her hair, though the flower itself now rested in a vial of rooting solution in the science lab. "And it's not yours."

"I never said-"

"You didn't have to." Jenny smiled wryly, watching Willow bustle about sorting shell-shocked teen supervisors and their straggling charges into more-or-less organized groups. "I can see the parents going pale all the way across the parking lot."

Belatedly, Giles reined in his ki. Sunnydale's adults might be blithely oblivious to the supernatural about them, but that wouldn't stop them from panicking in the face of a hellhound's rage. "Er... yes. Well. It's only, I'd hoped to be in the library by now..."

"The sooner we get the little darlings back to where they belong, the sooner we can dive into your stacks of dusty, musty, smelly knowledge," the computer teacher said firmly. "By the way. I've read _Inuyasha_. Have you thought about just how bad that dust is going to be with your nose?"

"...Oh, dear," Giles said faintly.

"And... we're back!" Xander pumped a clawed fist in the air as his small horde of children and teens rounded the corner into view. "Ladies, gentlemen, the quest for the sacred candy shards has succeeded, the bad guys have met the wrath of Shinigami, and the Jedi order has restored peace and justice to the galaxy. Boo-yah!"

Speechless, Giles could only shake his head in amazement as the children cheered, nightmares set aside by Xander's toothy grin. Not for the first time, he felt grateful Xander had been lurking in the stacks when he and Buffy had spoken of vampires. The Slayer might protect lives, but her band of friends helped patch together what was left after the Slaying was done.

__

They're distracted. Now is your chance.

He whistled low, a patterned cadence that had likely not been heard since the last Shinsengumi had left the dust of the world. A pale hand brushed by the redheaded swordsman's ear, as if batting away a pesky mosquito...

And Battousai vanished.

Giles slipped out of the crowd's view, leaping up to land lightly on one of the school's lower roofs. "Himura."

"Giles-san." A shadow detached itself from the darkness, the Bakumatsu's most feared assassin employing the skills of his trade as easily as breathing. "Or should one say... Saitou Hajime?" A miniscule shake of red hair. "Okita said we both had friends in peril, yet I did not expect to meet _you;_ that I did not."

"Okita?" Giles sucked in a sharp breath, recalling the brilliant young samurai who would have fought the Ishin Shishi to his last breath, only to fall to tuberculosis. "Is he - well?"

"I believe so," Kenshin nodded. "Though if the Powers have seen through his and Han'nya's deceptions on my behalf... but he has the best of the Oniwabanshuu on his side. And we were careful to arrange my escape to look as accidental as possible. And if not accidental, only my own fault..."

"Your escape?" Giles said carefully. "You couldn't have been in Hell, Himura. Not _you_."

Silence faced him across the asphalt shingles. "Do you know what Hell truly is, Giles-san?" Kenshin said softly, not meeting his eyes. "Hell... is passing the final door, into light and life, only to find that the one you love beyond life will only share it with you for a heartbeat. For she has a destiny, she is _Chosen_, and she must return. And because you kept her from that destiny in one life - you _protected_ her - the Powers' spite ensures she will be granted the worst of those Chosen lives they can find. For she, they say, has rested, when others have not; and what is fairness, but spreading pain evenly among those sacrificed to protect the world?"

"Battousai..."

"Hell," Himura went on, as if the words were torn from him, "is feeling her kiss you goodbye yet again, before she vanishes back into this world, knowing she will be born to grief, and rage, and pain. Hell is waiting, and watching, as friend after friend chooses to take their chances, hoping to be reunited with her. To spare her, if they can, some small measure of the pain Fate has decreed. Sano, Megumi, Yahiko, little Tsubame... I saw them all go. And I - could not. _I_ could not."

"Himura..."

"Hell is feeling her soul come so, so near to yours once again, cold and lonely and frightened of the dark." A tear glistened in stray light from the parking lot, trickling down the long slash of the cross-shaped scar. "I felt her cry out, Saitou. I felt her drowning. And I - I could do _nothing_..."

"Kenshin." Giles forgot the deadly swordsman, seeing only a young man torn by grief too great to bear. He gathered the small frame close, feeling hot salt soak Dreizehn's uniform. _So small. I'd forgotten he's so small._

"They told me I had earned peace." No hate in Himura's tear-choked whisper; just a bewildered, aching grief. "They said - I was too _valuable_ to return to this life. That so few assassins had reached - where I had. That I should be grateful to lay aside my blade forever... or at least, until _they_ should decide where I might be best used against their enemies..."

"Fools," Giles breathed. _Use a Hiten Mitsurugi master? What were they thinking?_ The masters of the Hiten struck as free blades only; that was why Himura had vanished from Toba Fushimi in the first place.

__

But he let himself be used as Battousai. They must have thought they could convince him to make the same mistake twice.

Twice fools, then.

"I... do not recall much of that place, that I do not," Kenshin said quietly against his shoulder. "But I know I sought for others I had known. Okita, Han'nya, Koshijirou - any who might aid-"

"Kamiya Koshijirou?" Giles arched a dark brow at his past life's redheaded nemesis. "And what did your father-in-law, who developed the swords to give life, have to say about his daughter marrying an ex-hitokiri?"

__

"Anou..." Kenshin flushed, disentangling himself from uniformed arms. "I - um - would rather not say..."

Giles took pity on him. _Besides, amusing as it may be to watch Battousai squirm, the others will miss us soon. And I want answers._ "They found you a way out."

__

"Aa." Kenshin sighed. "An opening. One I might have taken long ago, if only I had known of it-"

"Enough guilt!" Giles growled. "You're here now. All I need to know is how, so I can ensure no one meddles to send you back." _Bad enough that you've landed here when her heart is drawn to another; if Buffy loses you again- gods, I don't want to think about it._

Silently, Kenshin drew a scroll from his gi. Offered it with a slight bow.

Giles took it, unfolding the paper just enough to read the first few kanji. "This is a demon-summoning scroll." He sniffed, catching a trace of an ancient, faded scent. "Sealed with your blood."

The hitokiri inclined his head. "While the rurouni might have been bound to remain within that realm, chained to their gift of peace... the Demon of Kyoto was not."

"You lunatic." Giles couldn't help but smirk. "Have you any idea what you've let yourself in for?"

Kenshin straightened. "I would not have come if I feared this place's perils, Giles-san. Vampires, sorcerers, demons-"

"Demons? _High school_, Battousai. Coming here, day after day, surrounded by jocks, cheerleaders, and numerous other cliques who'll see you as fresh meat to be chewed up and spat out as yet another of Buffy's social rejects. Teachers who'll expect you to know American history and math and science all these young idiots can rattle off without thinking; yes, I know you had as much education as most samurai, probably more given you're too damn curious for your own good and every book that went through the Takani household went through yours as well, but Willow and I will have our work cut out just catching you up to Buffy's level. Not to mention a principal who believes children are active forces of evil." Giles paused, then drove the thrust home. "And you can't kill _any_ of them."

Kenshin stopped. Blinked. Paled. "Oro..."

* * *

"And... that's the last of them." Xander flattened himself against the inside of the library doors with a drawn-out sigh. He gave Buffy a grateful look as she turned the lock, holding out the world for at least another few hours. "Man, that was worse than Kaede's village! At least there the little squirts know enough to give a demon some room-" He slapped himself in the forehead. "_Shimatta._ Damn. F- Giles! _Please_ tell me you've got some way for us to hunt this spell down and kill it!"

"It's still in your heads?" Angel asked warily, turning over bark pieces as they tried to fit together their massive jigsaw puzzle. Willow had already sorted out the edges of the five slabs, Angel and Ms. Calendar were filling in gaps as they found matching pieces, and Giles had hauled out three or four musty tomes with similar weird letters, taking a break every now and again to sneeze.

"Oh man, is it ever." Xander sank down on his haunches, gazing morosely towards the floor.

"Xander?" Buffy knelt down next to him, suddenly worried. "What's wrong?"

Her currently white-haired buddy shook his head. Shivered. "Buff. We..." He trailed off, ears drooping, huddled in firerat-red.

"First kill?" Kenshin said evenly.

Buffy looked up, unnerved all over again by the redhead's uncanny silence. _It's like listening for a ghost... when the heck did he get Giles' spare cups? And Twinkies?_

"First human, anyway," Xander whispered. "Even if - he wasn't then - oh god, what did we _do?_"

"You survived." Kenshin wrapped unresisting, clawed fingers about a plastic cup of water. "Drink. Eat. Try not to think, not yet. Try only to be."

"You son of a-" Plastic creaked in Xander's grip as he growled, shoulders shifting as if he were a breath from throwing Twinkies and all back in Kenshin's face.

"If you believe it would make you feel better to strike me, you may try," Kenshin said, tone still as even as calm water. "You made your choices. They made theirs. _You_ survived." Violet regarded the shaking hanyou, fearless. "You feel ashamed. Stained. Unfit for the company of those you believe guiltless."

"How the hell can you be so calm about it?" Xander burst out, voice shaking. "Shippou told me - you _beheaded_ a guy-"

"Who nearly killed her. Who meant to bind me to kill more, to his will. I will not mourn his passing." Kenshin sighed. "I would there had been another way. But as a teacher of mine finally made me realize, mine is also a life worth saving. I will _not_ throw it away."

"They were Lilin." Cordelia's hands twisted in front of her as she sat at a library table, green eyes dazed. "We had to stop them, Xander. No matter what it took. If we'd - let them go, if they'd found the Hellmouth... they would have tried to summon Lilith. And I - I don't know if they _could_ have, but-"

"It's quite possible." Giles put his book down, rested his hands on her suited shoulders. "Lilith, the mother of demons, does truly exist in our reality. If any creatures had a chance of summoning her... you're completely correct. They had to be stopped."

Cordelia swallowed, barely registering the water and candy Kenshin set beside her hands. "So why do I feel so... so..."

"I believe they call it survivor's guilt, these days," the Watcher said matter-of-factly. "We may not like to admit to it, but humans have as much of a hunting instinct as any demon. It's simply buried, for the most part. Yet when one kills and survives... there is a certain thrill. A thrill that horrifies any sane being, of course," he amended at Buffy's stunned stare. "Nevertheless, it exists. And some of us are rather more prone to it than others."

__

Meaning you, Buffy realized, shaken. _Giles? Tweedmeister himself?_

"So. The fact that we feel like we want to throw up is a _good_ thing," Jenny said dryly.

Giles smiled slightly. "I would say so, yes."

"We were deep under. Bad choices come with the territory," Jonathan nodded, fiddling with his onyx cufflinks. "My uncle could have told you that."

"Your uncle?" Willow asked, eyes widening as Jonathan slid one onyx stone aside to reveal a space large enough to hide a microdot. "Oh, wow!"

"Yeah, these were his. He was in... well, you know. The kind of job nobody admits you do? Kind of the black sheep of the family," Jonathan admitted. "Guess that's one reason I picked Bond. Knew I had something that went right with the costume... and you really don't want to hear about this, so I'll just-"

"You," Giles stated firmly, "will remain within these bounds until we've determined precisely why the spell has not broken for us. There must be some reason. Some factor we all have in common."

"Something you're not going to figure out as long as we've got a ringer," Buffy observed. And pounced.

Or tried to. Reaching hands only grabbed a dark-blue blur where a gi had been; the throw she'd meant to toss him to the ground slipped over him like water as Kenshin twisted and flowed with her. _Man, this guy is fast!_ "Stay put!"

"One thinks-" Kenshin dodged. "That would be-" Ducked. "An incredibly foolish idea, Buffy-dono." Blurred upward-

"Hah!" Jenny flung out a hand, stopping the swordsman ten feet above the ground. "That should-"

Amber flashed in violet. _"Hiyahh!"_

Jenny flinched back, Force-grip breaking with an almost audible _crack_. Kenshin fell, relaxing into the impact-

Buffy snatched him first. "You. Moving. Stop!"

Flat on his back with her knee on his chest and her knife pricking his throat, Kenshin regarded her wrists. Lifted his gaze to hers. Let out a slow breath.

And deliberately turned his head aside, exposing his throat to her blade.

__

Say what?

"Buffy, stop." Xander's tone was odd, bewildered and angry at once. From the corner of her eye she could see his hands clenching, as if he would drive his claws through his skin. "You - he's - just stop. Please?"

"What the heck is wrong with you?" Angel took a quick stride toward Buffy, only to stop as Giles growled and stepped between them. "With both of you?"

"Kenshin is a kitsune hanyou, Angel. Of canine youkai blood, as Xander and I are at this moment," Giles said levelly. "Buffy's actions are those of a dominant female asserting her status over a pack male. He's submitting. If you interfere, if you attack him - Xander and I may well kill you." His hand twitched, too near his katana hilt for Buffy's comfort. "I doubt we'd be able to stop ourselves."

"But-" Buffy closed her mouth, thinking fast. _Wolf pack. The alphas have the right to kill outsiders. But if they let them live..._ "You knew!" She glared down at wary violet. "You did this on purpose!"

"No," Kenshin said softly. "I know you will not believe. I know you are right to be wary. But I am as lost within the magic that has reshaped me as you are within yours."

Buffy shook her head. "You knew your own name. You say you know me. You _laughed_ at what Angel said about Battousai." Half of her wanted to press the knife deeper; the rest wanted to throw up its hands in bewilderment. "You are _not_ wearing a costume."

"True," Giles observed. "But neither is he lying. Kenshin is as enspelled as we are." Paper rattled in his grip. "It's simply not the same spell."

"That's not from Gaul," Jenny said bluntly.

"No. Modern Japan. Circa 1920 or '30, I believe. Though the blood which sealed it to its true purpose was added some time later. Hiko hedging his bets, I imagine." More, quieter rattles, as Giles unrolled whatever it was further. "Or perhaps he simply wished to be sure your soul had enough time to slip the Powers' surveillance... Battousai."

That hushed the room.

"You mean he's really-?" Xander gulped.

Dark humor rang through Giles' tone. "Oh, yes."

"But- he's short!" Angel protested.

"A truly stunning observation on your part, Angel," Giles said dryly. "Tell me. As Angelus, did you ever hear a firsthand, eyewitness account of a Hiten Mitsurugi master? Anyone in the darker side of the night who had actually _met_ Battousai?"

"Are you kidding? He... killed them..." Angel shook his head, rallied. "Giles, I saw some of the results. Even a demon can't hit with a sword like that unless he's swinging down from over eight feet!"

"Try _coming_ down, from over twenty," the Watcher stated. "_Ryuu Tsui Sen._ You'll see it eventually, I'm sure."

__

Why do I not like the sound of that? Buffy thought. "Giles. Short version."

"This spell was written to call forth the Demon of Kyoto. The fool who cast it most likely thought it was a simple demon-summoning." Giles set the scroll down on one of the few bare pieces of table. "But the Japanese, like the northern Inuit and the ancient Celts whose holy night this once was, have magical traditions of _creating_ supernatural life, not simply summoning it across dimensions. This spell opened a path for a human spirit and wrapped it in a demon's form. Almost the opposite of a vampire's creation." He cleared his throat. "So do try to be a bit tolerant, if you would. Himura barely had a trace of demon blood before his first death. Dealing with a kitsune-hanyou's instincts is likely as difficult for him as our spell-wrought personas are for us."

"Not good enough," Buffy said tightly, glaring at wary violet. "You said you knew me. Giles knows _you._ How?" _I know you. I want to trust you. Why?_

Kenshin let out a slow breath. "The captain of the Shinsengumi's Third Troop, Saitou Hajime, had good cause to know his enemies."

"And later, his allies," Giles nodded.

"Saitou?" Angel looked paler than usual. "The old Shinsengumi who went by the alias Inspector Fujita Goro? The only police officer in Tokyo authorized to carry a Japanese sword? Who tended to leave closed cases and a trail of dead suspects?"

"He's heard of you, that he has," Kenshin observed.

"It's hard not to hear about a murdering-" Belatedly, Angel cut himself off. "That is... Buffy, if he's telling the truth, Giles-"

"Lived and died as a samurai, a lifetime ago," her Watcher said evenly. "As did a young woman who reshaped the art of the killing sword into a style of peace for the Meiji era. A Potential who, thanks to the work of the masters of Hiten Mitsurugi, was never called as a Slayer. A brave, stubborn girl who took in a wandering swordsman, and never cared that he had once been the most feared assassin in all of Japan." He laughed softly. "They do say your good deeds come back to haunt you."

__

He- I- Shaking her head, Buffy moved off her target, knife gripped loosely in her hand. _No way._

"And yours have not, Giles-san?" Kenshin observed, getting his feet under him. "I did wonder why she had not perished so swiftly this time." A shy smile touched his face. "So once more the Wolf of Mibu infiltrates the ranks of those who think they rule, to hold them to the truths they have forgotten." He inclined his head, the tail of his red topknot whispering over his shoulder. _"Domo arigatou."_

Going on her hunts. Letting Xander and Willow know what the Slayer was, and help. Letting a _vampire_ help him try to find a loophole, when the prophecy said the Chosen One would die and unleash the Master. _Giles has been breaking Watcher rules. To keep me alive._ "_This_ time?" Buffy shot her Watcher a murderous look. She didn't miss Angel's twitch, either. _What's he know that he's not telling me?_

"Buffy... nearly fifty years passed between the time Kaoru Kamiya died, and you were born," Giles said reluctantly. "It would be... very unlikely... that you were not born as a Potential again within that time."

"Three times," Kenshin said, voice dark and chill with tempered rage. "Three times I have seen you pass through the gates of death, and could not follow..."

"I'm sensing issues," Xander said to the room at large. "Anyone else sensing issues, here?"

Giles sighed. "To condense a very complex story to its simplest form - Buffy, a great many people have cared about you, in every life you have lived. And some of them have chosen to give up... certain rewards... to find you again." He cast Kenshin a wry glance. "Himura simply had to take more extreme measures than most."

"You gave up being human to help Buffy?" Willow peered at Kenshin, wide-eyed. "Wow. That's just-"

"-The kind of impulsive, idiotic thing anyone would expect from the Slayer's crazy crowd," Cordelia cut across her words. "Could we please stay on mission here? I am not explaining a new liquid diet to my parents!"

"I think I've got this mostly pieced together," Jenny said matter-of-factly. "I can't read it, but I can get a sense of it." She held her hand flat, moving it a hand's breadth over the inked bark. "The odd thing is, it feels dormant."

"Hmm." Giles moved to stand beside her, scanning the piecework. "_Meant_ to be cast on Samhain... I wonder where Ethan found this..."

"And I just went as 007." Jonathan joined Buffy and Kenshin as the two adults bent over Ethan's spell. "You really were someone like him? That must be so cool!" He stopped, and thought. "Or... not really. Oh man."

"Double-oh-seven?" Kenshin implored Buffy with a look.

"License to kill? Super-spy? Weird gadgets galore?" Buffy cocked her head. "You really have no clue, do you?"

"I assume this... Bond, was not known of in Japan by 1932," Kenshin said warily.

"Boy, are you behind the times," Angel said dryly.

"Um, no," Jonathan said, shooting the vampire an unfriendly glare. "Definitely not."

"He's popular culture-less!" Willow exclaimed.

"This, is definitely of the bad," Xander pronounced. Marched over, and slung an arm over the surprised redhead's shoulder. "I decree this an official Scoobie emergency. Willow, the Star Wars tapes. Buff, you go for pizza. Cordelia... well, you can instruct him in the finer points of endurance shopping later - what?"

Kenshin had slipped out from under his arm. "We've visitors, that we do." Frowned, as if listening; then took a surprised step back. "Oro?"

Buffy found herself with her hand on her gun, took it off with a hiss of disgust as she and the others watched the now-unlocked library door open. _Sunnydale. Anything coming in this library is going to laugh at a gun-_

A lithe woman in skin-tight white stepped into the library, black-tipped white braid flicking past familiar features. "Buffy?"

"Mom?" the Slayer said weakly. _Oh no. Oh, man..._

A tall, dark-haired swordsman with a wry smirk and a white-and-red cape that reminded Buffy of Spawn stalked inside in her mother's wake. "Ah. There you are, _deshi!_"

Kenshin blanched. "Sh-shishou?"

__

Thump.

Buffy stared at her arm-full of out-cold redhead. Glared at the caped swordsman. "And just who are you?"

"Kakunoshin Ni'itsu," the man answered levelly.

Piecing together a few last shards of inked wood, Giles snorted.

"But my friends often call me Hiko," the swordsman said without missing a beat. "I see my ward hasn't been taking care of himself. Again. Typical. Low blood sugar," he said over his shoulder to Joyce, deftly abstracting Kenshin from Buffy's grip. "I imagine he just hit the ground running and simply got caught up in the chaos like the rest of us. Do takeout places in this town still deliver at this hour?"

"Bad dream," Kenshin was muttering. "Bad dream..."

"As long as you order garlic breadsticks, usually," Joyce nodded, moving in to give her daughter a quick hug that was equal parts affection and motherly full-body check. "Last night, I would have told you I didn't know why." She searched her daughter's gaze, brown eyes worried. "Oh, honey. Are you okay?"

Buffy felt a sudden lump in her throat. "If I said no big, would you believe me?"

"In the interests of mother-daughter honesty, I'd have to say - not really." Smiling sadly, Joyce gave her another hug. "Cordelia? I know you'd probably rather not, but do you mind coming home with us for the night? Your parents are in the hospital, and I don't like the thought of you going back to an empty house. They're okay," she added hastily as Cordelia jumped out of her seat, face white. "They're just- concussed. Which is... sort of my fault..."

"Dad went as Casanova, right?" Cordelia rolled her eyes in disgust, picking up her cup of water with forced nonchalance. "Whatever you did, he probably deserved it. But Mom-"

Checking his ward over for missing body parts or blood, Hiko shrugged. "It's not the first time I've had to handle jealous _kunoichi_. For some reason I seem to attract them."

"It's the mysterious disappearing," Kenshin put in, violet eyes flicking warily open. "Show skills that rival the clan _okashira_, and they _have_ to chase you. If you really want them to leave you alone, _shishou_, just step on a few sticks when you walk."

Jonathan snickered.

"Oh, he's your kid, all right. He knows you too well." Joyce hid her own grin as Hiko gave her a swift, surprised look. "So. Vampires are real, and all over this town. Magic is real, and we got mixed up in it. And zombies and monsters... were real, until just a little while ago. And we - dealt with them." She glanced away. "Anything else I should know about right this minute? We are trying to fix this, right?"

"Oh, Mom." Buffy snagged her mother's hand, gave it a quick squeeze. "It's going to be okay."

"Isn't that my line?" Joyce fixed Giles with a stern look. "Well?"

"A moment." Frowning, Giles traced a clawed finger a bare half-inch above contorted Roman letters. "Most of these sheets appear to be devoted to the necessary preparations and conditions to invoke the incantation - 'call upon those whose night this is' - not to its purpose, or consequences. And yet, there is something in the structure... not of the invocation, which is to Janus, but of the original Gaulish spells meant to be cast over the costumes well before the night they are used..." He stiffened. "_Â cyflychwyr dan gyfaredd i galanas efo gras gan Morgannus ferch Dôn._ 'With twilight be spellbound to blood-feud by means of grace from Morgan, daughter of Dôn.' Dôn, otherwise known as Dana, the mother of the Tuatha de Dannan. Which would make her daughter... the Morrigan. Of course."

"Whoa, whoa," Xander waved his hands. "I thought that funky statue was Janus."

"Roman," Willow nodded. "As you said, a force of chaos. But certainly not the Celt's Phantom Queen."

"He didn't have to be," Giles said abstractly, flipping through yet another weighty tome. "Ethan only needed to open the door to chaos. Sunnydale's observation of Halloween alone, the swinging of the old Celtic year between the Seleighe courts of summer and the Unseleighe of winter - those whose queen above all is Morrigan, she who is lady of death, battle, and the claiming of mortals to Faerie's own armies - would do the rest. If this spell is what I believe... Yet the druids almost never committed their knowledge to the written word! The odds of Ethan being able to find such an incantation..."

"Giles, meet Hellmouth," Buffy pointed out.

"Us, meet screwed?" Xander added weakly.

Jenny looked over the spells, worried. "This is... some kind of spell-cast bargain? With demons?"

"With the powers of the Other World. Fay, demons, ghosts - the Celts weren't inclined to discriminate," Giles nodded, flipping pages. "Above all else, the Celts believed in the power of the spoken word. Any creature in a legend, even a legendary human, _was_ a Power. And that power could be called upon. Dealt with. Whether Seleighe or Unseleighe, that people often crossed the border between human and - not. They traded with them, married them, even sometimes hunted with them; at times, even other humans," the Watcher said darkly. "And they have made a bloody bargain or two. This appears to be one of them."

"That's my people you're talking about," Angel pointed out. "Good people. I grew up with them. They didn't make deals with demons."

"In the seventeenth century? No. Nor with the fay, either, thanks to the Church that took root there. More's the pity, I would say; your folk would have given the English a far better fight had they honored their old alliances." Giles turned one more page, scanning word by word. "But at the time of the Roman Empire, and before, those of Faerie were still powerful enough to wreak their will on humankind. And yet few enough that some could see their races diminishing, and take steps to avoid that fate." He met the vampire's gaze. "Do you know why vampires stay in on All Hallow's Eve, Angel?"

"Um... not really," Angel admitted. "It's just not a good night to be out."

"In the past few centuries, yes. As late as the 1400s, though, it was rather more." Giles frowned. "The dark night of the year. The time the worlds of the living, the dead, and the fay all stand open to each other. From dusk to dawn of this night, those of Faerie had the power to exercise their bloodthirsty tendencies on mortals and 'demons' alike - a very good reason for vampires to stay in, let alone humans." He tapped splintered wood. "Yet the fay are fair, by their own lights. They hunt and kill those within their dominion... but to counterbalance that, they granted a legendary spell - this spell, I very much fear - to be invoked as a rather gruesome protective measure."

You could have sliced the silence with a knife.

"Right. Enough stalling," Giles sighed. "In short, from sunset to sunrise, the spell binds you to become what you portray. And so for that one night, you join in the slaughter... and have as much chance as any other dark creature to survive the night."

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?" Jonathan asked wryly.

"So when the sun comes up, we'll be okay?" Cordelia ventured.

"Hang on, people," Buffy spread her hands. "I blew the statue to smithereens. _Other_ people are walking around just peachy. Human all the way. Which you guys are definitely not. Giles?"

"And that brings us to the other half of the spell," Giles said reluctantly. "The _teind_."

Angel stiffened, laying a protective hand on Buffy's shoulder. "They are _not_ going to Hell."

"Tam Lin's story aside, Angel, Hell might be easier to get out of." Opening yet another book on top of the others, Giles rubbed the side of his temples, obviously missing having glasses to polish. "Ah, yes. I thought I recalled... this is a copy of one of the older Watcher's journals, Buffy. From the early tenth century, writ by Hafren of Cas-blaidd. 'Night has vanished with the first light of day, and vanished with it have near two dozen of this small village we essayed to protect. We will not know the true count until the sun is high, and we may search out all those who did not pay magic's price. Those who cast this curse wished protection from those of Faerie. The Morrigan and her ilk wish to be certain there will always _be_ fay for them to be protected from. So they have taken as their own those among the spellbound who showed themselves willing, though by what means such creatures gauge that willingness the villagers will not tell me...'"

"Giles?" Buffy said pointedly as her Watcher trailed off. "You're having a moment. And I am oh _so_ hoping this is a moment of the 'oh goody, we win', and not of the-"

"I will hunt him down and _kill_ him!"

"I'm taking a wild guess and saying 'oh goody' is not on the list," Xander observed as Hiko moved to block the growling Watcher's path.

Ruby gleamed in the hellhound's gaze. "Get. Out. Of. My. Way."

"And let you loose in that night, when you know what may be coming? For you and your charges?" Hiko raised a dark brow. "You've been many things, old wolf, but never a fool."

"What did Hafren mean, 'willing'?" Jenny asked, glancing around as if she could see through walls. "What's coming? It feels so cold..."

"The hosts of the fay. Coming to claim those newly their own." Giles grimaced. "You, Buffy, Willow, Jonathan - you're likely to be safe. Legendary humans are still human, after all-"

"I'm not entirely sure on that part," Jonathan pointed out. "I mean, I feel weird. And Bond's supposed to be over sixty just from the movies, not to mention when you go through the books..."

"Nevertheless, you are _mostly_ human, and normally immune from fay capture save under special circumstances... some of which might hold in this library, you should get to a home and cross a threshold as soon as you can. The rest of us-" Giles looked away.

"No way. No way!" Buffy planted herself in front of him, fists on her hips. "No way am I letting some moldy Irish glitter-bugs grab you - and my Mom! - for a bill you didn't run up!"

"Oh, but I did. We all did." Giles touched the katana at his side. "My blade, a gift from a sensei when I turned away from the darker side of magic and set myself on the Watcher's path. Your cross. Jonathan's cufflinks. And I imagine the rest of us had something personally important, something that represented _who we are_, as part of our costumes as well." Clawed fingers clenched, straightened with an effort. "To those of Faerie, such items are part of you. To overcome that mystic weight binding us to our human identities, to change us along with the rest of those affected by the costumes... the spell had to transform us completely."

Dead silence.

"Space, you can't mean-" Jenny started.

"Bloody hell, we're-" Jonathan couldn't finish.

"Oh, boy," Willow whispered.

"Oh, _fuck_." Xander buried his head in his hands. "_K'so_, I did not just say that... oh, god..."

Joyce swallowed dryly. "This is-"

"Disaster?" Buffy broke in. "Catastrophe? Cataclysm? Lady Une having a glasses moment? Tell me when I'm getting warm!" _Oh man, I know_ exactly _what Une going glasses-maniacal looks like. Just like I know what it's like to shoot someone, to crush them under Deathscythe, to knife them from behind..._

"Catastrophe?" Cordelia burst out. "It's Armageddon!"

Dazed, everyone stared at her.

"My entire wardrobe! Useless! _Nothing_ goes with lavender hair!"

"Oro..." Kenshin sighed.

"Thank you for putting that in perspective, Cordelia, but I believe Buffy was referring to the more _imminent_ catastrophe of losing us to the hosts of Faerie at dawn," Giles said dryly.

"Which means mall-shopping there will be none," Xander put in. "And not only will they grab you, but they'll grab you in dire and serious need of color coordination."

"Ohmigod!" Cordelia latched onto Buffy with a grip of steel. "You've got to do something!"

"Hand me a Morrigan, I'll slay it," Buffy pointed out, trying to detach her fingers. "Spells - so not my alley. Giles?"

"Er... well..."

"We can hide them!" Willow burst out. "I mean, if Ms. Calendar knows a spell that will work... and maybe I can help, and... no?" she whispered as the technopagan shook her head.

"Celtic lore is at the heart of a lot of the pagan movement," Jenny explained. "If I'm putting that together right with what I _feel_ from this spell, hiding them won't work. Oh, it'd keep us from encountering the Hosts of Faerie, which would definitely be a good idea, but - Willow, they're not actively being looked for. They're _fay_. Their own nature will force them outside this dimension at dawn, just like the rest of the Unseleighe Sidhe." She swallowed. "And once they're gone, they might not even remember they want to come back."

"Like going full youkai." Xander shivered. "Without a miko to purify you - hey!"

Red haori yanked back to give access to his neck, Willow uncorked a sloshing bottle from her robes. "I'm sorry Xander really try not to kill me this is going to hurt-"

__

"Yeoww!"

Sizzling, damp, and breathing hard, a dark-haired Xander held out shaking, claw-less hands.

"When dealing with an unauthorized and hazardous portkey, the most effective option is to destroy the focus," Willow said in very professor-like tones. "If the powers of Faerie draw those affected in by the nature of their magical essence, then we simply needs must remove the magic." She swallowed, and smiled shyly, shaking the still half-full bottle of holy water. "No youki, no magic, no service?"

"By George," Giles murmured, stunned.

"Medic?" Xander said weakly. And toppled.

"Whoa!" Willow caught him as he went down, staggering to her knees as he shook. "Oh, no..."

"He'll recover," Giles said firmly. Sniffed the air, and relaxed. "Drastic as it may be, Willow, I believe your plan worked. His scent is human now."

"So why do I feel like hell?" Xander groaned.

"And just where are you going?" Angel asked pointedly, as Hiko headed for the door.

"To bring my car around," the swordsman said dryly. "If the pup's any indication, none of you are going to be in any shape to walk home."

* * *

__

Boy, did he ever have that right, Joyce thought later, breathing deep of the scent of buttery corn as a landspeeder raced over the sands of Tattooine. _It hurt so much... I thought my heart was going to stop._

But it hadn't, and here she was, curly blonde hair still caught in a damp braid, lounging on her living room couch with her daughter snuggled up against her side, various kids and adults scattered around the chairs and rug, and a bowl-full of popcorn in her lap. She'd started out with the bowl on the table in front of them, then discovered the bone-deep weariness which had sunk in after that blinding moment of pain in the library robbed her of any desire to move.

Kenshin had rescued her almost before she realized the problem, deftly easing the wide bowl into her grasp with a shy nod at the both of them, then vanished like a shadow to reappear across the room near Xander, peering wide-eyed at Vader's dramatic invasion of the Rebel ship. "Movies in a box, with _color_," she'd overheard him whisper when the TV was first turned on.

"Japan had movies in 1932?" Brushing out her black hair, Cordelia looked skeptical. "If you guys had Hollywood, why'd you bomb Hawaii?"

"Bomb Hawaii?" Kenshin looked stricken. "I knew Manchuria had been invaded, yet I hoped the people would make the Emperor see..."

Sitting between, Xander had put a hand on each of them. "We'll catch you up on old, bad history later. For now, enjoy the bad-guy ass-kicking goodness that is Star Wars." He'd glanced out the windows as yet another source-less shadow passed by, and shivered. "And think _good_ thoughts."

Recalling that feel of _chill_ and _searching_, Joyce shivered anew. One thing to hear Rupert Giles say he wasn't sure they'd eluded all pursuit as their ragged band lurched and staggered out to the parking lot. Quite another to see an inhuman shadow sweep through Hiko's headlights, missing them by inches as the swordsman snarled and swerved, hitting the gas to get them back to the fragile safety of her home threshold faster than she would have believed steel and rubber could ever carry them. "Is Mr. Ni'itsu going to be all right out there?"

"Giles thinks so," Buffy said in an equally quiet undertone, glancing toward the Watcher where he'd huddled in an overstuffed chair, jacket discarded for a blue-and-white quilt, glasses draped over weary eyes. Willow was ensconced on the rug by him with a can of ginger ale, a pen and yellow pad, and a determined look on her face as she scribbled down various notes. "And we can't send anyone else out with Angel to look for people still under the curse. I'm not leaving you guys until dawn; Kenshin's good, but he can't be everywhere at once. Willow's an animagus; if they got her to transform, they might still grab her. And Jonathan's - well..."

Out cold on the patch of couch Buffy wasn't in, curled under a couple of blankets in dreamless sleep. Unlike the rest of them, the poor boy hadn't yelped, sworn, or screamed as the purifying water sluiced over him. He'd just flinched, turned white as a sheet - and soundlessly collapsed.

"Ms. Calendar's taking enough of a risk going out," Buffy said grimly, "and _she_ doesn't feel like she got worked over by demons with clubs."

__

And that's not just a figure of speech, Joyce realized. _Not from my Buffy._ "Hiko seemed - well, not _normal_, he's an artist, but-"

"A nice guy?" Buffy shrugged. "Demons aren't all 'Grr! Arrgh!' all the time, Mom. A few of them - a really _tiny_ few of them - can even be pretty decent people." Her gaze dropped. "Guess that would go for half-demons, too."

Joyce smiled, guessing what was on her daughter's mind. It was clear enough; just glance at the corner of the living room her daughter was determinedly Not Looking At. "He is cute, isn't he?"

"Mom!" Hard to tell through TV-cast shadows, but she thought Buffy's cheeks flushed pink. "He's not my type!"

"You have a type?"

"Do I ever have a type. And that type would _not_ be of the short, redheaded, shy except when he's slicing bad guys into confetti, fangy half-demon variety," Buffy said firmly.

"More of the tall, dark, mysterious, fangy vampire variety," Joyce noted.

"Um..."

"We ran into a few vampires along with the Resident Evil zombies," Joyce stated. "I recognized the scent." She rested her hand against the still-warm bowl. "When were you going to tell me?"

"I was thinking not," Buffy admitted after a long, motherly glare.

__

You can say that again, Joyce thought wryly. "Is he living alone, or does he really have family in the area?"

"Kind of..."

__

I'm your mother, Buffy. I know a stall when I hear one. "Kind of?"

The front doorbell rang, and Buffy dashed off. "I got it!"

"Buffy-"

"It's all right." Kenshin was at her elbow before Joyce could do more than stand up. "It's only Ms. Calendar, that it is."

"How do you know?" Joyce pounced.

"He senses ki," Giles said tiredly, sitting up to look at them both. "You might think of it as auras, or life-energy. Much the way Slayers are supposed to detect the supernatural, come to think. Not so surprising, if the Hiten was originally meant to battle paranormal evil. It should be interesting to compare the two disciplines."

"Slayers?" Joyce asked pointedly.

"Er. Well. That would be a very long story, perhaps better told after the current crisis is past." Gaze sliding away from hers, Giles got to his feet and headed for the moving pile of brown paper bags and takeout coming in with an equally-laden Buffy. "I say, Jenny, can you even see past all that?"

"We found a nest of something nasty in Cordelia's neighborhood," Jenny reported, disassembling her pile. "So while Grumpy and Grumpier were trying to sort out unconscious types caught in costume from unconscious demons, I got the chance to grab a few things." She tossed a bag to Cordelia. "It's probably not in style, but it should do until you get home. I've also got some sweats for the guys, some sleeping bags, some of your clothes, Rupert, and-"

"Food!" Xander hit stop and pounced on the source of appetizing smells.

Jenny yanked her hand back, counting her fingers. "Right." Shook her head as the teens stirred themselves to descend on the takeout like a pack of starving wolves. "Anyway, I've pretty much had it for the night, so those two tossed me out here before - and I quote Hiko - 'I fall on my face and need to be rescued like one of the idiots on those ridiculous romance novel covers'."

"That's Shishou," Kenshin sighed.

"Grumpy?" Buffy asked, absently snatching an egg-roll from Xander's grip before his teeth could close on it. "Why was Angel grumpy? I mean, not that it's surprising, after tonight I think I'm buying stock options in grumpy, so..."

"Hiko's annoying him," Jenny reported.

"He excels at that," Kenshin nodded.

Jenny raised a brow. "I think Angel was about three sarcastic comments away from trying to punch him out."

Violet held an amber glint of mischief. "As Shishou has said, natural genius shows in everything one does."

Buffy rounded on him. "And just why is your _guardian_," the word dripped sarcasm, "trying to pick a fight with Angel?"

"Shishou does many things that don't seem to make sense. At the time."

Joyce watched, intrigued, as Kenshin faced her daughter in a bad mood and didn't back down. _Tough kid. That's more than I can manage, sometimes._

"It is possible he wishes to see how well the human soul is held within the vampire body," Kenshin went on. "It is not a usual situation, that it is not."

"He died, the demon took over, he did some bad things for a century or so, he was cursed with his soul, he's a good guy now," Buffy ticked off on her fingers. "Like you have room to talk, Mr. 'I used to be an _assassin_'. You didn't have a demon take you over! What's your excuse?"

"I have none." Violet faded to steely blue, as his voice went cold. "I chose to kill. And I chose to stop." He nodded to her daughter, then turned and bowed to Joyce. "Summers-dono. You have windows upstairs. I will guard them."

"Hold it right there!" Jenny got in front of him, just barely. "Here. Take it," she insisted, pressing a white bag at him. "Hiko asked me to make sure you ate. Said he hasn't forgotten how bad you are at taking care of yourself when you're worried about other people."

__

"Arigatou," Kenshin said softly. Headed for the stairs, and stopped. "Buffy-dono."

"_So_ not talking to you-"

"Curses have a tendency to strike - or break - when least expected," Kenshin went on. "Be wary."

And he was gone.

"I see Battousai's not lost his talent for dramatic exits," Giles observed. "At least this one occurred without blades flashing, blood dripping, or, gods help us, buildings set ablaze... er, what is that?"

"For _you_, Rupert, Hiko got a special order," Jenny said pointedly, shaking the last bag of takeout. "Plain soba. Whatever that is. What's so funny?"

* * *

__

daisho - "paired swords", katana and wakizashi.

__

Ryuu Tsui Sen - Dragon Hammer Strike.

__

Domo arigatou. - Thank you very much.

__

shishou - "Master". A term used in mostly in reference to teachers of old sword-styles.

__

Ni'itsu Kakunoshin - Hiko's alias as a potter.

__

kunoichi - female ninja.

__

okashira - leader, "boss".

__

teind - loosely, tithe, from Scottish Gaelic. Check out the ballad "Tam Lin"; it was believed in some areas that the fay folk had to pay a tithe of a life to Hell every seven years. Which they would sometimes "pay" with humans who'd been transformed into faeries.

The "spell" Giles notes is actually in rough Welsh; which, being Celtic of the Brythonic rather than Goidelic (i.e., Irish and Scottish Gaelic) language branch, is about as close as most of us non-language specialists can probably come to the words the Celts of Gaul would have used - especially since modern Welsh _also_ includes a heavy Latin influence, as occupied Gaul would have. See Time Detectives by Brian Fagan for neat archaeological information on many subjects, including Roman writing.

For Buffy fans - plain soba (unflavored wheat noodles) was a characteristic, humble meal for Saitou. Usually before he tracked somebody down with malice aforethought. Also afterthought. And in-the-middle-thought... you get the picture. Giles burning down Angel's warehouse? Give the guy a sword, and _that's_ Saitou Hajime.


	4. Chapter 4

__

Man, that ranks as one of the weirdest dreams, ever. Stretching in the darkness before dawn, Xander yawned, digging his fingers into his hair so he could find the first knots before he headed to the bathroom to do a more thorough job with brush and comb. _Too much Halloween candy, Xan-man. Not that anyone would have believed there could be such a thing, but obviously..._

Wait a sec. That was... an awful lot of hair, wrapped around his fingers.

And this wasn't his bedroom.

Xander jerked up in his borrowed sleeping bag, almost planting an elbow in the middle of Jonathan's snoring chest. Sitting up against the side wall with a blanket around him, Kenshin lifted his head.

"Sorry," Xander mouthed, slipping out of bed to find some clothes in the almost-dark. _Know Giles left some sweats around here somewhere... darn it, I'd have to turn on a light. And Jonathan's still pretty zonked out._ His fingers found rough cloth that looked darker than black in the dimness, and he shrugged. _What the heck. At least I'll be decent for breakfast._ He stepped into the hakama, tied it properly, bare feet shivering against the floor as he tried to figure out how to work the haori. It'd been so much easier last night, with the instructions...

The first glimmer of sun peeked over the horizon, and his blood caught fire.

__

My heart...

Xander felt the beat pick up, working harder, louder. Readying itself, for-

__

No! No way! We wiped out the youki! We were us again!

He tried to breathe. Tried to cry out - for Buffy, for Giles, for anyone who would hear. Tried to deny the sudden wave of alien memories and inhuman instincts forcing their way forward. This couldn't be happening, it just couldn't!

Clawed hands closed around his shoulders. "Xander-san. Xander. I am here."

__

Kenshin.

Help me.

"I am here..."

Xander panted for breath as golden light painted them both, feeling the odd _slide_ of bone and flesh and nails as his body shifted with the rising sun. This wasn't right. This wasn't him. He was Xander Harris, all-around regular guy who hung with a Slayer, not-

Fingers stretching, strengthening into claws. Long dark hair growing longer, bleaching to pure white. An ache in jaws and teeth and head, as fangs tried to shift the very shape of his skull.

__

Not me, not- I never said yes, damn it! I can fight this-

He gasped for air, Kenshin's scent rolling over his lengthening tongue.

__

Kitsune-hanyou. Kitsune-hanyou with steel, and cotton, and sweet-and-sour Chinese takeout...

And Buffy-scent.

Kitsune-hanyou who submitted to Buffy. Alpha female. My pack.

Mine!

Xander buried his nose in that steadying scent, feeling the tickle of red strands across his ears as they grew pointed and furred and climbed to rest within his hair. Whined when the fox tried to pull away, knowing it would hold the adolescent kit there firmer than any snap or growl. Dug his toes into the thick rug, enjoying the odd feel of softness against the roughening pads of his feet. Rubbed his jaw alongside the other's, letting pack-contact soothe the slight, sharp pain as fangs slid finally into place.

"...Xander-san?"

"Dawn's over," Xander sighed, shaking back his hair with a fanged grin. "I'm me again."

Red brows climbed. _"Sou ka?"_

"What, you don't believe me?" Xander answered in the same tongue, cracking his knuckles as he listened to the breathing, sighs, and swears of the stirring Summers house. Kami, it was good to hear again; forget numb noses, humans were almost deaf! "What's a guy got to shred to prove he's back to - normal..."

__

Normal. This feels normal. _I - I'm-_

"Head down," Kenshin said swiftly, pressing light on his shoulder. "Slow breaths."

"Good Lord," Jonathan drawled behind them, sitting up and kneading his forehead. "I had the most awful dream-" He froze, scent carrying a quick taint of unease, shock, resignation. _"Damn."_

"Pretty much sums it up," Xander agreed. _Jonathan speaks Japanese? Whoa._

Jonathan made an expert fist, sighed, and shook out his fingers. "I presume we're not the only ones affected."

Xander cocked an ear to the rest of the house. There was an excited female gabble from Buffy's bedroom, a thumping of what sounded like high-heeled shoes flung against the wall from Mrs. Summers', a series of grim antique Japanese and British curses from downstairs as Giles found his glasses unusable-

__

"Augghhh!"

And Cordelia had just discovered fangs and purple hair, if that ear-piercing shriek was anything to go by.

"Guess misery really does love company," Xander grinned. He had no clue why knowing Cordelia was in the same boat as the rest of them made him feel better; it just did. _At least now Queen C can't complain we're the only ones who bring weirdness to Sunnydale High's social life._ He drew a breath, teasing out scents of grass, birds, exhaust, friends old and new-

Took another sniff to confirm, and stared at Kenshin. "You didn't know!"

__

"Iie." Violet eyes were wide as the swordsman looked over the inu-hanyou holding him. "Your scent was human until just before dawn. Then - it _changed_, and I felt your ki surge forward..."

__

He's almost as freaked out as I am, Xander realized. _He_ wants _to trust me, but at the same time he's scared. Why?_ He reached up to rub behind the kitsune's ears, one packmate to another.

Kenshin flinched back.

__

Oh, man! Giles was right. Kenshin doesn't know what _he is. He doesn't even remember being hanyou before, the way I do._ Inuyasha's memories were a low whisper in the back of Xander's mind, fitting themselves around the rest like sneakers that just needed a little breaking-in. Monks, magic, youkai races by the dozens; he _knew_ things, now, that he'd barely skimmed over in Giles' books.

__

Pretty cool. If interspersed with occasional disgusting, Xander thought, recalling the feel of enemy flesh clinging to his claws. _Okay, think. If he doesn't know 'packmate'... maybe we can try something a little more obvious._

Backing off a few feet, almost to the bed, Xander bent his knees. Loosened his shoulders. Tilted his head, ears pricked forward, and gave Kenshin a sideways look.

__

Come on, Kenshin. I know _you can get this._

Biting his lip, the swordsman wavered, obviously caught between kitsune instinct's recognition of an invitation and human confusion.

Xander stifled a sigh, turning it into an interrogatory _whurf. _:_Play?_:

:_Play...?_: A higher pitch. Not quite the note inu blood expected. But familiar; like an almost-grown version of the sound Shippou made those times the two of them had scuffled without the others around to see.

__

Close enough. Xander lifted lips off fangs, just a little. :_Let's play!_:

And pounced.

* * *

"Sunblock. Sunblock, right," Cordelia's voice floated out of the bathroom, accompanied by a liquid _smack_ of lotion-covered hand against her forehead. "Oh, this is _so_ not happening..."

Buffy traded a glance with Willow, sighing when she realized her friend was once more entranced by the red-and-gold sparks she could shake out of her fingers. "Will. Focus."

"Focus. Is me," the young witch nodded, dusting multicolored sparkles off her hands. "Cordelia as half vampiric fay, bad. You with Shinigami in your head, _really_ bad. Your mom as ermine-hanyou - well, not _bad_, she's really pretty, but-"

Buffy bit back curses straight from the back alleys of the L2 colonies. "I thought we killed this thing last night!" Duo's memories had vanished with one painful splash of holy water, becoming just a wisp of dark blood in the currents of her mind. Until the sun had risen, and woken the God of Death once more...

"More like a temporary server down," Willow shrugged. "Halloween's over. We should be safe. At least 'til next year."

__

Thump. Thud. Thwump.

"Safe, huh?" Buffy jerked her chin toward the spare bedroom, where a frazzle-haired, sweatpants-and-t-shirt-wearing Jonathan had just darted out into the hall as if his life depended on it. "Then what's that?"

"Puppies," Jonathan answered, shaking his head as a low dog growl was answered by a higher, foxy yip. "Very big puppies-"

__

Thump! The house shivered.

"-who I believe just went out your window," Jonathan finished.

Buffy looked at Willow. Willow looked at Buffy. Two minds with one thought, one realization, one unified plan of attack.

__

"Camera!"

Digital camera in hand, Buffy dashed past a coffee-guzzling Ms. Calendar and a still-not-coherent Watcher, heading out the back. She hesitated on the back doorstep, making sure of just where the rolling ball of red and white and gray and blue was before she started snapping shots of the best blackmail material _ever_.

"Ooo!" Willow was bouncing up and down behind her, stifling gleeful squeals as the two boys play-fought across the back lawn, claws pulled in, fangs snapping near - but never quite on - sensitive ears. "Oh - ow - _that_ probably hurt, but-"

"I believe they're both skilled enough to keep it to bruises." Giles stepped out behind them, regarding the yipping, growling tangle with an amused smirk. "Hmm. Not as bad as I feared. I knew Battousai could play with children, but I doubt he's ever had the chance to engage in a youthful scuffle before."

"Oh, come on," Buffy sighed, lining up a shot of Kenshin with a good grip on white hair and an evil glint in his eyes, just before Xander managed to hook an ankle under his knee and send them both down again. "Hanyou or not, he had to be a teenager _sometime_." _Not like_ he _had a destiny. Not like he had to kill, and die, when he was just a kid..._

"He was no more a teenager than you are, Buffy." Giles' voice was quiet, touched with respect and regret. "The first time I saw him, the first time I ever caught a glimpse of the redheaded demon who'd been Choushuu's deadliest hitokiri for two years... he was only fifteen."

__

Fifteen. Buffy numbly handed the camera to Willow, letting her have a chance to work out her cuteness-capturing urges. _He was an assassin, he said he_ chose _to kill..._

Fifteen. Nobody's _sane at fifteen. Duo wasn't; that's why G picked him for Deathscythe, you don't ask a sane person to take a Gundam up against a whole world army, they'd tell you to go to hell. I sure wasn't, when Merrick told me I had an inheritance waiting in a graveyard. If I'd had any idea what I was getting into that night-_ She shuddered.

__

And if - Saitou - saw him two years later, that means he started when he was thirteen... "Who did that?" Buffy asked fiercely. "And can I still hurt them?"

"Perhaps fortunately for them, they're all quite dead," Giles said dryly. "It is easier than most people realize to convince an intelligent, idealistic young man to kill. And he did kill, quite knowingly, for five years. What is truly amazing is that he was able to _stop_."

Buffy shot a glance his way, trying to pick apart that odd, satisfied tone in his voice. _Giles is proud of him?_

"All right, all right, I'm coming, it's not like you have to slather this stuff on before you hit sunlight, Jonathan," Cordelia's irate tone drifted down from an upstairs window. "What's so - oh. Oh!" A hint of girlish squeal softened her voice. "Aww..."

Buffy blinked against the flash as Willow snapped several shots, catching the contrast of firerat fur and dark blue cotton against the green lawn, hair and arms and legs tangled together in a puppy-pile, white-furred ears poking out through loose scarlet as Xander chewed on a leather tie and a mouthful of Kenshin's hair.

"The Fox and the Hound," Joyce chuckled, leaning over her daughter's shoulder for a good look. "_Aww_ is right."

White ears swiveled toward yet another buzz of camera, followed by shocked gold eyes. "Will! You wouldn't!"

"Smile!" Willow said brightly.

"Smile?" Kenshin echoed, baffled. And blinked, caught off-guard by the flash.

"Camera," Xander snarled.

"That's a camera?" Red brows went up. "They've become smaller, that they have."

"And this one's about to become pieces!" Xander leapt out of the swordsman's loose grip. _"Sankon Tetsusou-"_

Dropping to one hand, Kenshin swept his feet out from under him. Xander swore as he hit the ground, rolling back to hands and knees with a determined glint in gold eyes that echoed that glittering steel-blue in violet-

Giles cleared his throat, letting out a low _whoof_. And looked just as startled as the rest of them when two faces whipped toward him, both reddening slightly. "Er, yes. Quite. Diverting as I'm sure that was for the both of you, we had best be inside before the neighbors take note. Hanyou on Halloween are unremarkable; on All Saint's Day, in broad daylight... kami, I've no idea how we'll handle Snyder..."

"Sick," Buffy said firmly, as the guys dusted themselves off and everyone hurried back inside. "We call in sick, Giles. At least today," she added when her mother looked ready to protest. "Tomorrow - well, let's see what we figure out today, okay?"

"It's going to take me at least a few hours to figure out how to sneak Kenshin into the school computers, anyway," Willow nodded, slipping the camera back to Buffy before Xander could catch her with it. She smiled at Kenshin. "Because - well, you probably don't have records, and the ones you did have would look pretty weird, someone from 1930's Japan trying to apply to high school, especially after you - whoa, died - and... I'll be quiet now."

"It is all right, Willow-dono." Kenshin gave her a shy shrug. "I knew this would not be a simple task. And yet-" he craned his head toward the front door, "-it may not be so difficult as you expect; that it may not."

"And what makes you think I'm going to make it any easier, _baka deshi?_" Hiko's voice grumbled through the wooden panels.

A red brow climbed. "Perhaps only that you arranged for me to be here in the first place?"

"Say what?" Already opening the door, Buffy couldn't decide which swordsman to glare at first. _Where's Angel_ was almost on her lips; a dumb question, seeing how high the sun was, but who said love was smart? _Priorities_, she told herself firmly. "How many did you find?"

"Of those fully other than human who didn't try to kill us on sight? A half-dozen or so," Hiko answered, stepping inside. "Though from the amount of bright ki out there, either Sunnydale is holding a swords tournament and no one told me, or there were a good few dozen more who went as something human. And why on earth you think I'd arrange for you to be anywhere, deshi-"

"But you did," Giles nodded in realization as Buffy closed the door. "No spell in your keeping could end up in evil hands. Unless you _allowed_ the scroll to be stolen."

"Knowing the sorcerer might kill a kitsune in the process!" Jenny's eyes flashed, hand dropping near the saber at her belt.

"A kitsune who would have my deshi there to defend her." Hiko fixed her with a level look. "You are Jedi, Ms. Calendar. I know you understand the duty of a master to a padawan."

"Well, I don't," Joyce said flatly, looking Hiko straight in the eye. "What could you possibly have done that would need this to make up for it?"

"Not something done," Kenshin concluded, as Hiko kept silent. "Something left undone. Shishou?"

The quiet plea in that voice did what her mother's frown couldn't. Tall shoulders slumped slightly under the heavy cloak; the swordsman stepped near his student, brushing a hand over the fall of scarlet hair. "Kitsune blood," Hiko said quietly. "Red hair, eyes like the sky at twilight, ki shining like a star... you were so obviously of our kind, I never worried that your scent was all but human. I thought you were only young. That you would grow into your strength. Your healing. It was only years later, when you brought Kenji to me that first time and I _knew_ he had but a trace of youki within him, that I realized you never would." He shook his head slowly. "I was your master. It was my duty to fit my training to your strengths. Instead, I gave you a weapon that destroyed you."

"You taught me to save lives," Kenshin insisted. "There are no debts between us, shishou. If anyone is owed, it is you." He smiled. "You saved Kenji."

"That's the useful thing about getting to brats while they're still toddling," Hiko said dryly. "It was close, but he was still young enough for me to hunt down some... old friends' assistance. _You_ weren't."

"Shishou-"

"But now the debt is paid," Hiko stated. "You have your training. You can use it without killing yourself. I expect you will, though if you don't take some time to relearn, you're an even bigger fool than I thought; full-strength kitsune-hanyou youki is more powerful than the ki you're used to channeling, and immeasurably wilder. You have a legal identity, more or less; I've enrolled you here, and if that _bakayarou_ of a principal looks into your paperwork-"

"Oh, believe me, he will," Giles put in.

"He'll find notes in your Social Services file that you were home-schooled by eccentric and borderline psychotic Japanese relatives before the state saddled me with you," Hiko finished. "That should cover _most_ of your glaring idiosyncrasies." He looked his student over, topknot to straw sandals. "As for the rest..."

"Oro?"

* * *

"Thank goodness for UV-proof windows," Cordelia muttered, tapping up her sunglasses as she relaxed in a Californian teen's natural environment - the mall. Her hair had finally cooperated in form, if not color, smoothing into an elegant over-the-shoulders fall that set off her new soft-gray and emerald blouse and skirt in a way that spawned mass jealous disbelief in various store clerks. Her food court table was piled with bags of more outfits, all selected for maximum effect with her new looks. She'd dispensed a healthy amount of sarcastic style advice as Buffy and Willow dragged Xander through the men's department, fuzzy ears tucked under a black ball-cap, gold eyes cringing in fear. She'd even managed to trade one or two barbs with Hiko as he half-carried his shocked student through Modern Clothing 101. And all was about as right with the world as it was going to get.

__

If you leave out the whole blood-drinking aspect, Cordelia thought starkly, staring into her cappuccino.

Oh, she was luckier than Shido. Food seemed to do her _some_ good. Giles thought it was the whole can't-match-it-exactly-so-take-a-random-swing aspect of Ethan's spell; NightWalker-type vampires didn't exist in their reality, so the transformation had gone for the closest thing that did. And the closest thing seemed to be a cross between a youkai and what Giles called an Unseleighe Sidhe; fairy creatures that ate, and drank, and did everything else humans did... and drank blood.

Hiko had brought some. She'd looked at it. Swallowed dryly. Left it in Mrs. Summers' fridge.

__

I can't. I just - can't.

"Eyaghhh." Ushered by his two grinning wardens, Xander set down his bag and dropped into the white plastic chair across from her. "I know, I'm just a guy, with all the fashion sense of a blind gorilla. But would _somebody_ please tell me what would be wrong with wearing my old clothes?"

"They wouldn't fit," Cordelia said absently.

"Huh?"

"Well, they might," Willow spoke up. "I mean, your sleeves would be too short, but the rest of it... only they'd be really tight - at least, some places - and - oooh, not going there..."

"Buff?" Xander blinked. "Babbling Willow translation?"

"Xander... I know it's freaky, but take a good look in the mirror next time we toss you something to try on," the Slayer said matter-of-factly. "Longer sleeves are the least of your problems."

"Oh, for goodness' sake," Cordelia muttered under her breath. Leaned forward, making sure nobody was in easy earshot. "What these two are trying to dance around telling you is that you're not built the same anymore." _Not that he isn't - built - ahem._ "Take advantage of it. And make sure you get clothes you can move in; the last thing we need is you splitting seams when the football team tries to stuff you into a locker."

"Hey!" But Xander's yelp got applied to a shell-shocked, all but shivering swordsman, various bags clutched in his arms, who slipped into the seat by Willow as if it were the last refuge from the Apocalypse. "Kenshin?"

"Oro..."

Cordelia raised a lavender brow. Poet's shirt with loose sleeves, dark blue with just the right undertone of yellow to keep a redhead from going deathly pale. Subtle black belt. Charcoal jeans with the kind of cut and gussets for movement she'd seen on a few martial-arts instructors. Not bad, not bad at all. Mix that with the long red hair to die for, and he'd have instant Sunnydale High social standing as dangerously cute. So what was his problem? The last time she'd seen someone that scarlet, Harmony had led a newbie freshman into committing social hara-kiri. "What happened to you?"

"Shishou," the redhead said numbly. "Clothes. The - things - you call underwear..."

"Ah, but you've missed so _much_ over the decades, deshi!" Hiko appeared behind his student, cloak wrapped around their swords, smirking. "No man should be blind to the wonder that is the push-up bra."

Kenshin buried his face in his hands. "Oro..."

"I _like_ you," Xander said, giving Hiko an amazed grin.

__

Thus proving there is no justice in the universe, Cordelia thought, as she and the other two girls trained glares on the idiot that should have made him one more greasy spot on the floor.

"What? What'd I say?"

"Xander-san," Kenshin mumbled, not looking up. "If you do not yet know, you will only learn through _painful_ experience, that you will."

"Hey! Last time I checked, you were on our side of the fence, buddy." Xander hesitated. "You are, right?"

Hiko snorted.

Now Kenshin did raise his head, one red brow quirked up. "Simply because my preference is not for _nanshoku_, does not mean I am boorish enough to guide my eyes where they have not been invited."

"Er- ah-" Xander stammered. "Well - I knew that. That is-"

"Nan-what?" Willow asked innocently.

"He said he's not gay," Cordelia filled in tactlessly. _Better yank dog-boy out of this hole before he digs himself any deeper._ "So. Did you-" she glanced under the table, where Kenshin was still in those antique sandals and Xander's feet were jammed into a spare pair of Giles' ugly brown leather monstrosities. "No, you did not hit sneakers yet. Come on." _You so owe me for this, Xander. Nothing helps a girl's mood like new shoes._

"Why is no one staring at us?" Kenshin ventured as they headed shoe-ward through the gabbling crowds. "You said we will need the charms Jenny-dono and Giles-san even now seek elsewhere to pass within school confines, and yet we are here, in a marketplace. And save for the pickpockets, no one marks our passing."

"Pickpockets?" Xander asked.

Cordelia held up three fingers, Kenshin two, Buffy four. "One guy with a toy poodle got a little too close," the Slayer added. "I stomped his toes while you were still arguing with Willow about the merits of plaids versus stripes. Of which I have to say, eww."

"These people won't see you every day. They're not looking past odd hair and teenagers to see fangs and claws. The charms are meant for those who will," Hiko said dryly. "Even so, this isn't Tokyo, deshi. Red hair doesn't mean you're a demon. Come to think of it, in Tokyo these days, even lavender hair isn't that bizarre. An extreme fashion statement, but not bizarre."

"So Japan truly has changed," Kenshin said quietly.

"Yes. And no." Hiko frowned. "You saw what was happening before your death. For a time, it only became worse. The free press Katsuhiro fought to establish suborned to the state, schools beating children to make them obedient soldiers, officers brutalizing soldiers to turn them on Japan's enemies... when I saw the photos published of what happened in Nanking, I could only thank the kami you and Saitou had already departed the world. That the Revolution you fought and bled for had come to this... it would have broken your hearts."

"And what were you up to during World War II?" Buffy asked pointedly.

"Surviving," Hiko said dryly. "I wasn't about to go decapitate our government. The Emperor's family does still maintain Shinto traditions, they would have seen me coming. And between trying to keep my part of Kyoto halfway sane, and help members of certain families stay out of the military by any means possible - dear gods, a Sagara in the military would have been a bloodbath, much less a Myojin or a Kamiya - believe me, even a master has limits." He shrugged slightly. "Afterwards, the American Occupation banned kenjutsu for years. They didn't look too closely at a traditional potter, his apprentices, and his doctor and farmer relatives, but we had to stay hidden quite some time. So many swords lost..."

"Winter Moon!" Kenshin gasped.

"Is safe," Hiko reassured him. "It might have been even if I had not hidden it. Swords from the Sengoku Jidai are national treasures now. But that would have left it in a museum; not where it should be, with the master of Hiten Mitsurugi. Or _a_ master," he said, half to himself. "You have no idea what you started with that idiot sakabatou."

"Reverse-blade sword?" Xander tilted his head, ears obviously twitching under the black cap. "What would anybody use something like that for?"

"Cheating death." Hiko strode through the tag-detector unit into the shoe store, heading past summer sandals to many shelves of sneakers. Frowned at a pair with black stripes, then motioned Kenshin to follow him around a corner. "Let's try over here, for a start."

"Ah, good afternoon, sir! And miss," a cheerful bleached-blond store clerk laying in wait pounced. "How can we help you to-"

"Miss?" Kenshin said darkly.

"...Sir?" the clerk tried to salvage the situation.

"Why do these say _Womens_ on the side, shishou?"

"I've seen your feet, deshi. Your odds of finding anything in men's sizes are... small."

"Shishou!"

"Somehow, I get the warm and fuzzy feeling it's a wonder those two haven't killed each other yet," Buffy observed, handing down a sample of men's sneakers to Xander as he worked his borrowed shoes off.

"Oh, well, they're guys," Willow put in. "It's not like they can actually act like they care about each other. Except you do sometimes, Xander..."

__

Rescue the poor kid, Cordelia thought; Willow's fumbling attempts at salvaging Xander's wounded pride were all too like Shido's memories of little schoolgirl Riho's blushing confrontations with tough-talking, experienced, and usually nude Guni. "Xander, I know you and dogs are supposedly color-blind, but I thought Inuyasha could at least tell red went with his skin tone." She gestured at the sneaker currently in hand. "You are _not_ going to wear fluorescent yellow-accented sneakers."

Xander took a look at the striped abomination in his grip, debating the merits of throwing it at her. "And I suppose you're going to stop me?"

"If humanly possible." Cordelia went through the stack of boxes beside him, sorting and tossing with efficiency trained by years of fashionable sales. "Look at your hand. See that skin tone? Not so easy to tell the blue undertone under store lights, but when you throw in the pure white hair, it's a given. You're a Winter. You need drama. Pure colors; black, red, charcoal gray. Or ice tones. Medium colors wash you out, make you look undead - and I think we can all agree that's not a good look for anybody in this town. And yellow, especially _that_ yellow, is of the Antichrist."

"But I like yellow!" Willow protested.

"Autumns do." Cordelia pointed at the redhead's betraying freckles. "See? Gold tone. That's how you tell the difference between an Autumn like you and a Summer like Buffy. Summers tan; Autumns burn. Buffy needs to hit the middle ground between true primaries and ice tones; _you_ need to check out the camouflage palette. The thing to remember is you don't want yellow, you want yellow undertone. Like this," she waved at her own outfit, "only stronger colors. Shido _would_ be a Spring. Do you know how hard it is to find that season in style?"

Willow stared at her.

"What?" Cordelia said impatiently. "I know your mother picks out your clothes, but come on! This is grade school fashion, here!"

"Different colors... look good on different people?" Willow turned wide eyes on Buffy.

"A lot of the time, yeah," the Slayer nodded. "I guess I just thought you knew. Most of the time you show up in good colors..."

__

She's going to cry. I just know it. Cordelia slipped out of sight, heading for the high heels. Funny; even the heady scent of leather pumps wasn't doing much for her spirits. It was one thing to mock Willow's stunning lack of fashion when she _knew_ anyone with two brain cells to rub together wouldn't be caught dead in Rosenburg outfits. Quite another to view those taunts in the light of Willow's utter and complete ignorance of the basics.

__

Like Willow telling me to hit "Deliver" in computer class. She knew _I didn't know what I was doing - but she didn't rub it in everyone's face._

Cold. She felt so cold.

__

More than cold, Cordelia realized numbly, sitting down on a green-padded bench as the sounds around her faded into an indistinguishable roar. _I'm... thirsty._

Human conversation muddled together, yet her hearing felt unnaturally acute. Heartbeats pounded at her, calling, calling...

"Hey."

"Xander." A red and white blur in front of her, carrying the heady scent of inu-hanyou. "I'm in trouble."

"Yeah; I can smell it." The blur moved closer; she heard hair rustling, felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek.

__

Heartbeat. So strong. "Idiot... get away..."

"Buffy's got our end of the aisle blocked off. Kenshin's keeping the clerks distracted the other way. You can't feed on Willow, she's too small to push you off if you lose it the first time and if she freaks and throws a spell we could have toasty Sidhe treats. But I know you can take a little from me."

"You... sure?..."

"Shut up and bite me, wench."

__

I'll show you wench, you-! With a silent snarl, Cordelia bit down.

Salty. Metallic. Warm, filling her mouth, swamping her tongue with glittery tingles. She swallowed, feeling the rich taste push out the chill in her bones.

__

Somebody call ZNN... there's something out there better than chocolate!

"Oh..." Xander leaned into her, tracing the tips of two fingers over the pulse in her throat. "Oh, man..."

__

Don't stop, Cordelia thought blissfully, letting crimson trickle over her tongue as those knowing, clawed fingers worked. Distantly she heard what might have been a Willow-yelp, quickly stifled. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that tickling, tingling caress from just behind her ear down to her collarbone. _Either he's been poking into some of the "mature" sections of Giles' books on the weird, or he's a_ really _good guesser._

Part of her wanted it to last forever, leaning into those feathery caresses. Feeling that heartbeat against her own, nurturing her, supporting her. But she'd... really had enough... and they were in public...

Cordelia withdrew her fangs, licking the wound clean so it would heal. _Ooo-kay, that's a definite queasiness factor kicking in here._ "Um. Thank you?"

"Ahb... ze thee... ooo..."

Frowning, she waved her hand in front of dazed gold eyes. "Hello? Wakey-wakey?"

Wordless, Xander grinned at her.

"Blue screen of death," Cordelia muttered. "Buffy! Where do you hit 'reset' on this idiot?"

__

"I hear there's a dice game down by the docks after moonrise," Kenshin's archaic Japanese floated over to them.

"Huh? What? Where?" Xander shook himself. "Which docks? You haven't even been near the beach yet!"

"Weird. Worked, but weird." Buffy crossed her arms as she peered around the racks toward the red-haired swordsman. "How'd you know that would work, anyway?"

Kenshin hesitated. Sighed. "Souls do not change that easily, Buffy-dono. Your lives here and now, I do not know... but the four of you I knew very well once, that I did."

"A fact which makes me amazingly glad the Wolf is here as well," Hiko said dryly. "Your friends tend to be too heroic for their own good."

"Ex_cuse_ me?" Cordelia cut in. Heroic? Her? As if!

"We're not... you know," Willow added. "I mean, we're there with the research when Buffy's up against the bad guys, and we try to help, but... you're giving me a look. Which I'm not really sure I'm up to. Looks. I mean, I have enough trouble with guy looks, and teacher looks, and Snyder looks - you know, I think I can deal with demon looks better than Snyder looks-"

"Willow-chan," Hiko said levelly. "The fact that you're still here is proof enough." Turning, he headed for the counter. "Come on. I want to see if the Miburou's killed anyone yet."

* * *

__

Deep breaths, Giles told himself firmly, standing in a shadowed corner as Jenny negotiated with the Dragon Cove Magic Shop's Rumanian shopkeeper. As he should have expected, had he been doing his job as Watcher instead of yielding to wolf and hound instinct to hide his pack until they were fit to face the world again, there had been a run on the various components of the more common illusion charms last night. Some of the more fragile herbs couldn't be had for love, or even money. Which left Jenny currently bargaining with the shopkeeper for ingredients to more subtle and less known incantations, meant more to blur the eye than make signs of demon blood vanish. Bargaining the man behind the counter seemed to be taking a truly unholy pleasure in drawing out, knowing he had the technopagan over the metaphorical barrel. _Try, as young Willow has so often told a certain Slayer, counting to ten. Ichi, ni, san, shi-_

Kneading his forehead, Giles let out a deep sigh. _Not quite what I had in mind._

It could have been worse. He might have accepted Mrs. Summers' quiet offer of a fortifying glass of wine for the adults last night.

__

And given Saitou Hajime's rather homicidal behavior whenever alcohol enters the equation... as Buffy might say, don't go there.

Not that he thought killing Ethan would have been ill done. But the thought of yielding up that much of himself to a life that was over and ended chilled him.

__

I could never understand how Father and Grandmother could be so unswervingly dedicated to their calling, Giles thought. _One has choices in life, and to choose to serve the Council's will, even in name only, even if it is to protect a Slayer from that same Council..._

__

But if their souls had been true Watchers before, and they were as haunted by their memories as we are by ours... perhaps for them there was no choice.

I knew I was a disappointment. I never could understand quite why.

And none of that touched on the true source of his unease. To remember who he had been, what he had done... to feel the ruthless, honorable, bloodthirsty soul that was still a Wolf of Mibu accept Dreizhen's demonic memories and powers as no more than his right... to _know_ he was no longer reacting as the Watcher looking after Buffy's innocent and eager friends, but as a pack adult watching over adolescent cubs as they learned to make their own kills...

__

They're children, Giles thought desperately. _Only children._

Children in your keeping, older memory pointed out. _This is war, old Wolf. You remember war. It would not stop for Okita. It would not stop for Battousai. It will not stop for them._ _You would keep them alive? Then_ teach _them, Miburou._

Teach them to fight. To kill.

__

Battousai will help.

Yes; he would, wouldn't he? The rurouni might not have, trying to take the fight entirely on his own shoulders... but the wanderer who had settled in Tokyo seemed worn away like an old penny.

__

If I'd seen Tokio go forth and die, again and again, I'd have lost my peace as well, Giles admitted, tasting the air as the shopkeeper's scent changed to something nearer agreement. _Not that I had much to start with._

Now the steel core of the hitokiri remained, and that man had never been afraid to let his comrades fight beside him.

__

Well, behind him, anyway, Saitou's memory supplied. _Which was just as you wanted it. Why waste time with those of lesser skill when the Demon of Kyoto was at your blade?_

Gods. He _wanted_ another of those duels. Wanted the dance of steel against steel, nerve and wit and deadly grace flowing over the battleground like leaves in the whirlwind. Wanted it even more now that they were allies instead of enemies; how better to test his own strength, than against the one man who'd faced down Shishio Makoto's own hell?

__

Patience, Giles reminded himself. _You had some skill with the sword in this life, but neither your training nor Saitou's had a hellhound's youki to deal with. Practice first. Until then, wait. Battousai's not going anywhere._

Though it seemed as if they finally might be. Jenny made a slight gesture with one hand; the shopkeeper winced, gave her a nervous laugh, and finally turned to the register to ring up the total.

__

Wait. I know that sign. Stepping out of the shadows, grateful for his gloves - though he doubted they fooled the shop's owner for a moment - Giles raised an eyebrow at the computer teacher. "You've dealt with gypsies?" he asked in an undertone.

"You... could say that." Jenny looked dispirited. Lifted her chin. "Giles. I have something to tell you. But not here." She nodded toward the parking lot.

__

Nervous, Giles concluded, teasing that faint scent out of her controlled calm as they stored their packages in his back seat. _And... hurt?_ "Jenny. If someone's done you harm-"

Putting on her seatbelt, Jenny shook her head. "It's funny, don't you think? I know the Jedi aren't real. That Mira's just someone I made up, based on the stories. And yet, I..." Words failed her.

"If there is one thing I've learned living on a Hellmouth, it is that reality is more affected by our perception of it than most would imagine," Giles stated, securing the driver's side door. He left the seatbelt off for the moment; no matter how much he knew the belt was advisable for safe driving, the car was still off, and instinct balked at being tied down a moment longer than necessary. "You are real, Jenny. And apparently you are also Jedi. Therefore, logic would argue, the Jedi _are_ real. Even if, at this point, you are the only one."

"At this point?" she echoed, startled.

"Ethan's spell created creatures and powers compatible with this reality," Giles clarified. "If the ability of a Jedi to touch the Force exists here, then those with that ability, however untrained, are also likely to exist." He raised a dark brow. "And you are a teacher, Ms. Calendar."

"Oh." She blinked, the full seriousness of the situation sinking in. "Oh, god... Rupert, if I find someone, teach them... oh god, what if I screw up?"

"You won't be alone," he reassured her. "If memory serves, ki manipulation has a fair amount in common with the basic concepts laid out by Lucas, and I am not inexperienced with those skills. Though Battousai is the true expert." Giles frowned. "And he _will_ help, qualms at passing on the Hiten or no. I'll see to that."

"But... I can't," Jenny protested. "I just can't. Rupert, I've walked on the Dark Side so long, and I didn't even _know!_"

__

What? "Jenny-"

"I'm not Jenny!" She buried her face in her hands, the salt scent of tears leaking through her fingers. "My name is Janna."

Part of him wanted to hold her close, tearing the throat out of whatever had hurt her so. A darker part fought to pull away, sensing a trap. Giles split the difference, gripping the wheel with white knuckles. "Perhaps you'd best start from the beginning."

"The beginning. Oh, god." She drew in a shuddering breath. "The beginning... was in Romania. 1898."

__

1898. Korea was firmly in Japanese hands. Battousai was long retired, tending Kaoru's garden, only using the Kamiya Kasshin style if he had to fight; and he did, still, sometimes, even with Kenji and Yahiko finding all the trouble young masters of their styles could wish for. Takani had finally tied Sagara's wandering feet to Tokyo, raising a small horde of stubborn, smart doctors and brawlers to be. Saitou was beginning to slow down a bit, but he was still terrorizing the streets, Giles recalled. _Why else does that year seem familiar?_

"They say the night was reft by storms," Jenny said quietly, "the very heavens keening for the most beloved daughter of the Kalderash tribe. Crying vengeance on the demon that killed every man, woman and child that touched her life, before finally trying to turn her, too, into a vampire. But the tribe caught him before he could force her to take his blood. They caught him, and bound him, and cursed him to pain as eternal as theirs. As... ours."

"Angel," Giles breathed.

Jenny nodded, eyes closed tight. "My people... see vengeance as a living thing. Something that _must_ be done, _must_ be served. We've... watched him... ever since that night. Always watching, always in the shadows, making sure he suffers as we suffered." She shook her head. "Once we knew he was here, with the Slayer... there aren't that many of us who can pass as _gaijo_. Much less a high school teacher. So - it was up to me. To watch. To make sure he never forgot what he had done, why he deserved to be tormented..."

Giles tried not to feel. Not to react. "The Kalderash are steeped in magic. Surely you must know the human soul escapes the vampire's grasp. There are remnants of personality, yes - but they are the demon's, wholly. What justice could there be in forcing Angel to suffer for Angelus' crimes?"

"It's not about justice, Rupert! It's vengeance. It's the way of my people. And I can't - do it anymore..."

"Jenny." Giles unlatched her belt, gathering her up as she cried. Dark and unjust as they might be, they were still her tribe. To leave their ways would be to leave the only family she had ever known.

__

And all I can offer her is a fledgling pack of hanyou and magic-touched youngsters. Oh, Jenny.

"I will protect you," he growled softly, kissing a salt-stained cheek. "I swear it."

Jenny sniffled, but pushed back with a little of her familiar spirit. "I'm a Jedi, Rupert. I think I can protect myself."

"Of course." Giles gave her a toothy smirk. "But it's always good to have a second sword, _ne?_"

Jenny scrutinized his face and ki, searching for any sign of deception. "You don't hate me?"

"It's not the most pleasant thing to hear. But we all have darkness in our past," Giles admitted. _At least I've buried mine. Mostly._ "We've all - strayed - from what most might hold as the straight and narrow, for reasons that seemed right and true at the time. And tried to return to the light, once we realized we were lost. At the risk of sounding rather odd, given the circumstances... it's what makes us human."

"_Very_ odd," Jenny murmured, daring to brush a finger across the top of one cropped ear. "I... this is going to sound so stupid, I know, but - does it hurt?"

"No." Giles shook his head, trying to shake the tingle of her touch on sensitive skin. "It's somewhat disturbing, but since dawn, this - form - feels quite normal. I suppose that's only to be expected; the Morrigan and her ilk would hardly want new recruits who wished to become human once more-" He broke off his words, looking away.

"You don't want to break the spell." Jenny touched the side of his face, guiding his gaze back to hers. "Rupert?"

"I should," he said tightly. "My duty, as a Watcher-"

"Is to guide, protect, and train the Slayer, right?" Jenny finished. "I don't see _human_ listed as a prerequisite of the position. Come to think of it, given how I've seen Buffy pummel you and how often you're _not_ in the hospital after getting shot, stabbed, or otherwise supernaturally mangled, I doubt it ever was."

Silence hung in the car. "I'd... never quite thought of it that way," Giles admitted at last. "My family never seemed to believe we were different, outside of our calling, of course. And we're certainly no match for Slayers..." He frowned thoughtfully. "I believe I'll have to consider that. Thoroughly. Fortunately I'd already filed this month's report on the 29th. I'll have some time before the next is due."

Gypsy eyes went wide. "You make reports?"

"Unfortunately, yes. The Watcher's Council is rather strict about that sort of thing." Giles shrugged slightly. "Fortunately for both Buffy and myself, they usually consist of what, where, and how difficult a certain supernatural menace was to slay. Incidental acts of outside assistance and details of the Slayer's personal life are of no interest to the Council." Giles snorted. "Chiefly because they don't believe either exist."

"What, they think the Slayer handles the whole world full of supernatural bad guys on her own?" Jenny crossed skeptical arms.

"I've my doubts they _think_ that far at all." Giles squinted into the sunlight, mentally composing the bare basics. "Right then. Sorcerer, chaos spell leading into the ancient Celtic Unseleighe bargain, successfully broken before dawn, some still affected and loose on the Hellmouth, observations continuing." He nodded.

"Terse. To the point. Not a lie," Jenny observed. "Saitou Hajime must have given his superiors fits."

"Frothing ones." Giles snapped his seatbelt into place, craning his head over his shoulder as he backed out. Carefully. Faster reaction times were not always beneficial.

Jenny took out a pen and notepad as they pulled out, sketching a few quick notes on what charms she wanted to look up. "Should we pick up Jonathan and Mrs. Summers?"

"Her gallery did take damage, and given that she is so graciously allowing us to impinge upon her hospitality until we sort this out, I'd prefer to let her have whatever time she deems necessary to put it to rights. Best to have the charms made first." Giles made a right into traffic, focused on the road. "In any event, neither of those two have much to fear from ordinary eyes. For an ermine hanyou, Signet is very human in appearance; and as for Jonathan's Bond..."

"Based on the fainting, I'd guess he's part Sidhe," Jenny nodded. "Anyone notices anything, he'll just charm them out of it."

Giles arched dark brows. "The fainting?"

"European holy water's been used against Sidhe a lot longer than it's been used against youkai," Jenny clarified. "Oh, it _works_ against youkai, it's purifying power focused on casting out the inhuman, but it's not nearly as effective as - say - an _ofuda_. It's like anti-virus software, Rupert. If you don't have the right virus definitions in your program, it'll miss even the most obvious adware chewing up your processor time."

Giles sighed. "You do realize I didn't understand half of what you just said?"

"Which is something else we've got to work on," Jenny said firmly. "Honestly, Rupert. If Sunnydale hired _you_ as a librarian, there's something seriously wrong with the school board here. Librarians. Use. Computers!"

"I know."

Jenny's brows climbed at the soft admission; dropped again as she thought that over. She pursed her lips, and nodded slowly. "You just don't want to face down Mrs. Summers about Slayers."

A temporary reprieve, he was sure. But Giles seized the change of subject gratefully. "Would you?"

"Explain to a mother that her one and only daughter has been chosen by the Powers That Be to fight evil - _by herself_ - that I wouldn't take on without a tank and backup? No, I don't think I would..."

* * *

__

Sou ka?- Is that so?

__

Iie. - No.

__

Sankon Tetsusou. - "Iron Reaver, Soul Stealer!" or "Exorcising claws!" depending on your translation. Inuyasha's usual claw attack, capable of taking out centipede youkai in a single strike.

__

bakayarou - "Fool, jerk".

__

nanshoku - love of males.

__

Ichi, ni, san, shi - One, two, three, four.

__

ne? - added at the end of a statement; roughly "Right?" or "Don't you think?"

__

Ofuda - paper talisman.

__

gaijo - Romani for "outsider", non-gypsy.


	5. Chapter 5

"So basically," Joyce summed up, dumping the last shards of Hiko's pot in a dustbin, "You don't really know what's going on with Buffy, or her friends, but you do know they seem to get mixed up in anything weird that goes on near or around the school. And inside the school, weirdness gravitates to the library."

"It's the one place no sane denizen of the school goes, save under duress," Jonathan agreed, sweeping glass dust into a pile with a flourish of bristles. "Which seems rather weird, given how many bodies have turned up everywhere else... I've been in there to get a book or two for class reports. And now that my brain seems to be losing whatever static was making the details fuzzy, somehow I don't think things labeled _Vampyr_, _Pergamum Codex_ or _Du Lac manuscript_ really _belong_ in a high school library."

__

Static, Joyce thought, straightening shelves. _Something that makes you gloss over all the things that you ought to pay attention to._ "Last night, Hiko said the amount of youki loose would keep people from remembering specifics..."

"Demonic energy?" the teenager said thoughtfully, leaning the broom against one of the few bare patches of gallery wall. "Japanese. Whoa, that's still weird. Not to mention Chinese, and German, and Russian, and - yeek - F-18 stats... um. Okay. Mystical energy. Loose last night. Not loose right now. Except-" He looked at his hands, then at her.

"We're still in it," Joyce concluded. "So... because we're part of it, we can't forget?"

"I guess." He dodged her gaze.

"Jonathan." She gave him a look, honed on Buffy, with a shade of the cool dispassion Signet would have used on yet another of Blazon's and Animus Prime's idiotic dominance fights. "Believe it or not, adults don't just inflict algebra on teenagers for kicks. We can actually add one and one and come up with two. Buffy doesn't forget. Buffy's been talking about vampires - or _not_ talking about them - since L. A." _Which means Buffy is... like us? How can that be?_

"She's been seen jumping the wall at school," Jonathan said reluctantly. "You know, the one you'd have to be a squirrel to go over? She took out those vampires who got onstage at the Bronze last year barehanded. And word around the caf yesterday was she introduced Larry the linebacker to a soda machine." He shrugged. "I don't know how the others fit in. Which is funny, because I remember wanting to ask Xander why his girlfriend Ampata's hands got so rough so quick a few weeks back, it was weird... but then she disappeared, and I forgot."

Ampata, Joyce thought. Ampata the foreign exchange student, who she'd invited into her own home. Who'd turned out to be a girl when they'd been expecting a boy. Who'd just vanished after that international dance at the Bronze, luggage and all.

And she hadn't wondered why. Had barely even noticed. Just one more mystery around her bewildering daughter.

__

That does it. I'm making a list.

"I really appreciate the help, Jonathan," Joyce said, scribbling things to pin down Buffy about on a separate piece of paper from the insurance list of items damaged or destroyed by last night's chaos. "But you don't have to do anymore if you don't want to. I could run you home anytime; your parents would believe me if I told them you were over the food poisoning."

"No... no, I think I'd really rather be here. At least for a few more hours." Picking up a painting with delicate care, the teen gave her a halfhearted smile. "Dealing with this... it's a lot simpler than dealing with some of the things in my head right now." He puffed a breath across painted canvas, wafting off fine debris. "Now I know why Uncle Robert never wanted to talk about his work."

__

Knowing how to spy. How to fight. How to kill. Joyce shook her head. _I don't know if I can do this._

"Um... hello?" A dark-haired, worried young man in his late twenties knocked on the gallery's front doorframe, a waft of horse and something _other_ drifting from his jeans. "Ah, look. I know this is going to sound weird..." He caught a glimpse of Joyce's black-tipped braid, brown eyes blinking wide before he shoved his hands in his leather jacket pockets. "Okay, never mind, you know weird already. Um. I'm Gary. I could really use some help, and a friend of mine said I should ask you. Of course, she also said I should at least put on a white shirt, and I really don't feel like being that much of a target-"

Joyce set down her notes. "What's the problem?"

"What friend?" Jonathan asked warily.

"Well - I - oh, heck." He glanced down the street. "Marissa? Do you mind?"

A horsy snort, and suddenly what had seemed like a patch of sunlight resolved itself into the form of a white horse with simple leather tack and hackamore, one blue eye giving Joyce a deliberate wink.

__

What the-? "That," Joyce said, solid in Signet's confidence in what she scented, "is _not_ a horse."

"Oh, damn," Jonathan breathed. "What possessed you, man? To go as a bloody walking target-!"

Gary perked up at that. "You read the books?"

"Skimmed one," Jonathan admitted. "I hate to break it to you, but you're a very _long_ way from Haven."

"Ah, yeah... anyway." Gary glanced at his watch. "We've got about forty-five minutes to sneak something called a talisman of Keltor out of the mayor's post office box before his assistant picks up his mail, and I don't know how to pick locks." Brown eyes beseeched her. "Help?"

Joyce eyed him. "Talisman of Keltor?"

"Well, from what I saw happen... actually, what _will_ happen, about twenty hours from now, if we don't grab it... aw, heck. Tell you on the way?"

__

I could walk away, Joyce thought. _Right now._

__

But if I do... Buffy won't.

"Let me grab my cell."

* * *

"Talisman of-? As if we didn't have enough annoyances." Stepping across the Summers' kitchen from Jenny's bubbling pot, Giles sighed. "Wrap it in something white, dunk it in salt water, and call me in the morning."

"I'm serious!" Joyce protested over the phone.

"So am I. Mischief-attracting talismans may be difficult to locate, but they are relatively easy to disarm. Fortunately." Giles cocked an ear to the road, catching two particular engines among the others. Along with a few, fainter noises. _Is that-? Yes._ "I believe the children are on their way in. If you don't mind, I suspect I may have to haul Kenshin and Xander out of Hiko's back seat."

"Are they at it _again?_" Joyce sighed, exasperated. "I thought Animus and Blazon were that bad because they were lion and wolf Bloods competing for alpha, but now I'm beginning to think it's just males in general... um."

"The memories will settle with time," Giles said firmly. "If they're truly vexing, I believe Jenny could take a hand. Smooth off the rough edges, as it were."

"Thanks, but I think I'll try and live with things as they are for a while," Joyce said plainly. "I've had enough magic messing with my head for a lifetime."

"Quite right." Giles made a polite goodbye as Jenny mouthed the words of the unfamiliar spell laid out on the counter, a white chunk of quartz crystals holding his _Llyfr o Nudd a Llygedyn_ open to the key pages with their attached sheets of modern notes. He plucked up a plastic bag of dried blossoms, placed it in her reaching hand. "Foxglove?"

"_Menig y tylwyth teg_, the glove of the fair folk, to conceal their hand from human sight," Jenny murmured, working out the spell's logic in her head. "_Gwymon_, the seaweed that nourishes, to exist within the borders; neither land nor sea, neither earth nor sky. _Afallen_, apple, seed of the tree that joins the Otherworld to ours. Mince them all with the blade of _gwydrfaen_, the salamander's own dark glass, so that others may see in day as if it were the cloak of night. Sift them three times through the rising wind, mingle them with cleansed water, and stir with the - _hoelen arian?_"

"Silver nail," Giles translated, handing her the small, silvery point. "Specifically, a silver horseshoe nail. One of the friendlier interactions history records between humans and the Seleighe Sidhe was that of a smith re-shoeing a fay steed so a faerie lord could reach his _sidh_ before dawn. Using silver, as iron would cripple the creature. It cost the smith dearly, but his family prospered ever after."

"Soak the pierced stones therein, and bear them with you to cloud mortal eyes... hmm. Well, you're right, it's not witchcraft. I can cast this. And it looks like it'll work. But it's not a very powerful spell," Jenny warned. "We're going to have to renew it at least once a month to keep the charms working."

"Given the circumstances, I believe the less magic we employ, the better." The Watcher skimmed the ancient words again, checking them against his memory. "Not to mention this is one of the few spells I could locate swiftly that not only is Celtic magic, but employs the five Oriental elements as well."

"Earth, wood, fire, water, and metal," Jenny ticked off. "You think that'll be important?"

"As you pointed out, different magical traditions lead to different vulnerabilities," Giles stated. "Best to spread our net as widely as possible." Two cars grumbled into the driveway. "If you have this under control, I believe I'll go pry our young pups apart."

Testing her obsidian blade with the edge of her finger, Jenny waved him off.

Giles walked out into the sunshine in time to catch Kenshin's quick leap to land, poised, on the roof of Hiko's car, leaving a blinking Xander on the ground with empty claws. Dark eyes narrowed as Giles read the set of Battousai's muscles; the ki not aglow with play, but vanishing into the shadowed stillness of too many bloody Kyoto nights. :_Knock it off, pups._:

Xander jerked his head up toward the no-nonsense _whoof_, ears evidently flattened under his black ball-cap. "Don't _do_ that, G-man!"

"It seems to get your attention," Giles noted dryly.

"Yeah. By grabbing the scruff of my neck and shaking," the inu-hanyou muttered, rubbing under the flow of white hair as if he could still feel teeth there. Sniffed the air, and looked up to where Kenshin still crouched, ready to move like the wind. "You okay?"

"I... had forgotten what it was to be among large groups of people, that I had." The former assassin's voice was cool. Taut.

__

Yes, he's definitely had enough, Giles concluded, as Cordelia finished locking up her car and the girls headed for the front door, bags in hand. "We'll be inside."

"We will? Hey!"

Giles kept his hand locked on Xander's collar as he hauled the protesting teen inside, closing the door on a glimpse of Hiko speaking softly to the still-tensed Battousai. "He may appear to be handling the dislocation quite well. I assure you, he's not. Give him some room."

"And you know this," Buffy said grimly, shopping bags piled in the middle of the living room. "You know _him_."

"The man I once was knew him quite well, for more years than I care to count." Giles looked over the four of them, taking in Willow's fidgeting, Xander's fangs biting his lip, Cordelia's uncharacteristic silence. "I take it that disturbs you?"

"It's him knowing us that's freaky," Cordelia spoke up. "I mean, okay, Slayers get the cosmic merry-go-round instead of the one-way ticket, fine - but Kenshin acts like he knows all of us!"

"He does," Giles said gently. "Or did." He met each gaze in turn. "You weren't affected by Jenny's enspelled use of the Force. I've no idea how much you might remember of the past; or indeed, if you will ever remember anything. Do you truly want to know?"

"Not knowing on the Hellmouth is bad," Willow pointed out. "What if he thinks we know something, and we don't? Someone could get hurt!"

"Someone nearly has," Giles observed, half to himself. "He's not as calm as he may look, Xander. Be more careful. He _feels_ very much as he did at the height of the Bakumatsu, and if you accidentally trapped him in a corner... well. It would be very, very messy."

"What's a Bakumatsu?" Xander protested.

Sighing, Giles motioned for them to sit down. "In 1853, Perry's fleet - the 'Black Ships', as Japan came to call them - sailed into Edo Harbor and, under threat of cannons, forced Japan to open its ports to the world. Prior to that time, Japan had for almost three centuries followed the policy of _senkoku_, the closed country; outside of some very limited trade, they wanted no part of the modern world, and preferred it had no claim on them, as well. Then... well, to use an analogy from your American films, it was as if spaceships had landed on the White House lawn, and demanded at laser-point that Earth join an intergalactic trade federation. On the aliens' terms."

Xander winced. "I think I speak for us all when I say, ouch?"

"The people were terrified, and rightly so," Giles went on. "And the Shogunate, those who served as the Japanese government, had no answers for them. Britain, the United States, Germany... more and more countries forced concessions from the Shogunate, and those few Japanese who had traveled abroad saw their country poised on the brink of what had happened to China. Which had, at that time, been carved up and exploited by several major powers," the Watcher added, considering his audience. "I won't bore you with the details of the Opium Wars. Suffice it to say it was a bloody nasty piece of international history. Educated Japanese believed something had to be done. Yet so long as the Shogunate held power, they thought nothing would. So they went to war."

"What does this have to do with Kenshin?" Buffy asked bluntly.

"Everything." Giles' lips twitched into a shadow of a smirk. "These days we use covert operations teams and smart bombs. The Ishin Shishi, those who overthrew the Shogunate, used _hitokiri_." He gave his audience a hard look. "For over a year, Kenshin was assigned to eliminate key government personnel and other Shogunate supporters. Often he had to go through their bodyguards as well. And he left _no witnesses._

"I... Saitou learned of him only as a shadow at first. A killer who fought like a demon, and left only bodies and blood. We had no name, no description; only what we could deduce from shattered swords and scene after scene of death.

"And then I saw something. Only a glimpse, as the Shinsengumi put the Ishin Shishi to flight... for a little while. A scent of white plums and blood, as a small, redheaded samurai fled from us, holding hands with a young woman as they vanished in Kyoto's night." Giles snorted. "But fool that I was, I didn't expect a hitokiri to love. So we did not pursue them as closely as we might have. Not that I'm certain we'd have been able to stop them if we had."

"The woman - she was Kaoru?" Buffy put in.

"Kaoru would have been about three or four at the time, so no," Giles said plainly. "That time... well, you'll have to ask Battousai about that later. _Much_ later, I would advise; I imagine those memories are still quite painful, and I know they have nothing to do with any of you. Suffice it to say that once the blood began flowing in Kyoto again, Hitokiri Battousai had left the assassin's path. He became a skirmisher instead, guarding his comrades from my fellow troops, offering one blunt challenge in the night: _Go back the way you came, or die._" Giles shifted his shoulders; a minuscule shrug. "Within a few years, the Ishin Shishi won, the Revolution was over... and Battousai disappeared.

"Ten years later, he surfaced again in Tokyo; a rag-tag wanderer who only called himself _'rurouni'_, following rumors of a murderer who claimed the name Battousai. And that is how Himura Kenshin encountered a very brave, very _determined_ young kenjutsu master who only carried a wooden sword, who still meant to catch the killer and clear her family name." Giles raised an amused eyebrow at the reddening Slayer.

"Giles, there is no way I'd go after a guy with a _real_ sword with a hunk of wood!" Buffy sputtered.

"Ah, but this was the age of Meiji. Supposedly a time of peace and new ways of thinking," Giles said dryly. "Fortunately for your past self, when the murderer came for Kaoru with a good two dozen of his cronies, Kenshin was willing to back up your ideals with some very hard knocks."

"So he rescued our Buff?" Xander perked up. "Whoa."

"Himura would say Kaoru rescued him, as well," Giles observed. "I believe she was the first person to get his true name out of him in, oh, at least five years." He spread his hands. "In short, Kaoru invited him to stay. He did, and the pair of you encountered a series of interesting characters. Some of whom, over time, became close as family." Giles turned his gaze on Xander. "One of the first of those was a nineteen-year-old brawler by the name of Sagara Sanosuke."

"You're kidding," Xander said in disbelief.

"Rude, rough at the edges, and rather prone to leaving unconscious enemies behind him," Giles said with relish. "But not a bad sort, all things considered. On those rare occasions he actually _thought_."

"All right," Xander cracked his knuckles, eyes narrowed. "You're going down."

"I rest my case," Giles said dryly.

"But - you-" Xander took in the Watcher's deceptively casual stance, the sword at Giles' side, and the fact of his own blade a few critical feet away with the shopping bags. "Ooh, one of these days..."

"Not too long after Battousai pounded some sense through Sagara's skull, the pair of them encountered a young lady doctor," Giles went on, turning to Cordelia. "Takani Megumi was in a great deal of trouble; enough to need Battousai, Sagara, and the entire Kamiya dojo to handle. Suffice it to say the ensuing violence was of the kind American theaters won't allow those your age to view without an accompanying adult, and I've never been quite sure how Himura escaped prosecution for the property damage. Though I suppose the police were pleased enough to lay hands on a major opium smuggler to ignore certain lesser offenses."

"A doctor?" Cordelia said faintly. "But - I'm not a geek!"

"I assure you, neither was she." Finally, his gaze fell on Willow. "And no sooner had the dust settled from that incident, than one of Kaoru's students met a young restaurant waitress, Sanjou Tsubame. A child of a lesser samurai family, who still hadn't accepted that Meiji truly meant to create a new way of living, where the weak no longer served the strong. But she found her strength in time."

"Eep?" Willow shrank back.

"To address your key concern, Willow, Kenshin does know you - we - are not the folk he knew of old," Giles said matter-of-factly. "But our ki feels much the same, and if the Hiten Mitsurugi style has one flaw, it is that its users react to ki as instinctively as you do Snyder's shadow. He _trusts_ you. Implicitly. And that trust makes him fragile in a way he could not have predicted." Giles fixed Xander with a firm look. "You are not playing with another teenage boy, Xander. You are sparring, however gently, with the Demon of Kyoto. A young man whose every instinct, since he was thirteen, has been to _kill_ his opponent."

A knock at the front door interrupted the flood of teenage questions before it could begin. Giles lingered long enough to see Buffy wave Hiko and his former student in, then escaped to the kitchen. "Well?" he asked, seeing Jenny dust off her hands with a look of satisfaction.

The technopagan nodded toward a pot of simmering green liquid. "Holed stones set and soaking. I'd say we'll be good to go tomorrow."

"Thank god," he breathed.

"Don't let them hear you say that," Jenny said impishly. "This is high school, Giles. The closest Earth comes to Hell without demons?"

"Well, a reasonable prequel is currently waiting in the living room to interrogate me more about Meiji, past lives, and a young ex-assassin with severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," Giles snapped back. Drew in a slow breath, and gingerly shook his head. "_Sumimasen_. Forgive me, Jenny, that was uncalled for."

"You're right. It was." Jenny's voice was cool. "Are you that much more worried about him than the rest of the children?"

"Hiko was never involved in the main fighting of the Bakumatsu," Giles informed her. "He never met Battousai; not truly. Even when Kenshin ventured back to lay his life and hopes at his teacher's feet, he'd already been rurouni for ten years. He'd achieved a measure of peace with himself and his actions. Now that peace is gone, and Hiko means to take him under his wing again. And if you believed that sword-swinging potter was sarcastic to Angel..."

"Which is why he's staying with you," the swordsman said plainly.

Giles kept himself from flinching through sheer force of will. _Damn; another one!_ He'd never before met another swordsman who could cloak his ki as well as Battousai. Though given who Hiko was... "I _beg_ your pardon?"

"Don't be dense, Wolf." Hiko stepped into the kitchen, eyeing Jenny's concoction with clinical interest. "I've paid my last debt to my student. He's a master himself; he certainly doesn't belong under _my_ roof anymore. I'm a hermit. I've been a hermit for greater part of two centuries. I like it that way." A shadowed smile crossed his face. "And you're right. I can see it in his eyes. The blood. The nightmares." The shadows faded from Hiko's smile. "Not to mention my deshi still has a fair grasp of tactics. What sane man builds his headquarters on the docks when his target prefers the marketplace?"

"Buffy is not a _target_," Giles ground out.

"_Shinsengumi wa Shinsengumi,_ _hitokiri wa hitokiri_. That will never die in him, no matter how much peace he finds. You know it. I know it. He knows it."

"She is... in love with another," Giles admitted.

"Is she? I hope he can run _very_ fast." Hiko smirked. "What, that tormented soul in a vampire's flesh? With a vampire slayer?"

"I find it rather poetic," Giles said stiffly.

"And I find it rather suicidal." Hiko shrugged. "But then, the Hiten teaches its wielders that Bushido is not the be-all and end-all samurai would like it to be. We've never been in favor of _shinju_."

"I think Buffy has more sense than that," Jenny stepped in before the conversation could turn ugly. "Rupert. I've heard of love at first sight, but this sounds serious. I know you say Kenshin cared about her..."

Giles sighed. "If over half a century of devoted marriage qualifies as _caring_, then yes."

Jenny gaped at him. Closed her mouth, still staring. "...Oh."

"Himura's an honorable and patient man," Giles began.

"Naive, guilt-ridden, idiotically self-sacrificing..." Hiko put in.

"Call it what you will, he has always loved Kaoru's fierce independence, her strength, and her devotion to her friends," Giles went on firmly. "I sincerely doubt he would threaten those now by doing something - drastic."

"You mean like luring the vampire into a back alley, dropping on top of him with a _Ryuu Tsui Sen_, and turning up with a nice clueless expression to console her afterward?" Hiko said dryly. "No. My baka deshi's too honorable to consider that as an option. Pity."

Jenny raised a skeptical brow. "Somehow, I get the impression you don't like Angel."

"Angel? Hmph." Hiko was silent a moment, fists tightening under his cloak. "How much do you know about Angelus?"

"The Scourge of Europe? More than you can imagine," the gypsy woman said grimly.

"He didn't just feed in Europe." Hiko looked into the distance. "In 1894, he and his sire, Darla, used the chaos of the Korean invasion to cut a bloody swath through Kobe, and then Tokyo. Kenji and I spent months tracking their kills, their offspring. As they, in turn, were tracking _us_, sending out band after band of fledglings on the trail of rumors of vampire slayers and redheaded swordsmen. Very canny vampires, dark and evil even for their demonic kind. And their offspring were nearly as canny; Darla had a fondness for turning ronin and ninjas." Amber flickered in dark blue. "Refusing to invite such creatures across your threshold means little when they can use inhuman strength to cast a _manriki-gusari_ through your roof and ensnare your best friend's daughter."

"Sagara Machi," Giles breathed. "Battousai would never say how she'd been injured that night. Only that those responsible had been... dealt with." Which had seemed very odd, for the rurouni who would not kill. But search the dojo as he might, Saitou had found no blood beyond the girl's.

__

Of course you wouldn't. Not if the corpse turned to dust.

"A bokken can harm vampires," Hiko noted. "Two, and Sanosuke's fists, were able to deal with even three vampire ninjas. But it was close. Too close. If Darla had sent four..." He shook his head. "Battousai may have been a ruthless killer, but he was _sane_. Angelus is a psychopath."

"Was," Jenny pointed out.

"Is," Hiko said flatly. "The demon is still within him. Sense it through the Force if you don't believe me. No, I don't like him. I don't trust him." Amber cleared from dark blue eyes. "But you say he fights on the Slayer's side now. I won't harm him."

"Thank you." Giles granted the swordsman a formal bow.

Mischief glinted in deep blue. "I'll leave that to Kenshin."

* * *

"No, Mom, I can't walk away from it!" Buffy's voice rang out in the night to vampire hearing. "I tried, really I did. Even after we moved here, even after a guy fell out of a gym locker with fang marks in his neck... I didn't ask to be the Slayer! I didn't want to be the one and only girl in the world responsible for heading off Armageddon! I just - am."

Angel winced, listening out of sight in the night beyond the living room window. _They must have started this before sunset. Damn._

"So don't be," Joyce argued. "This is magic, isn't it? Find a counter-spell. Find _something_. Get your life back."

"Unfortunately, Ms. Summers, it doesn't work that way," Giles said firmly. "The Slayer was meant to serve as a counterbalance to the forces of darkness. If the Calling could be undone, rest assured, the greater demons would have done so long ago. Buffy was Called. She is the Slayer. She will remain the Slayer until the day she dies." His voice lowered. "It is her destiny."

"This is America," Joyce shot back. "We don't have destinies."

__

Works in theory. Angel sighed, heading for the door.

"I would not intervene, that I would not."

It'd been a seriously long time since anything had made the hairs stand up on the back of Angel's neck.

The quiet voice floating down from the roof, however, did it.

__

Okay. So the kitsune-hanyou likes roofs. No reason to panic. Cool, calm and collected, Angel lifted a casual gaze to the slim shadow on the shingles near Buffy's bedroom window.

Molten gold stared back.

__

Shit.

If he'd been breathing, those eyes would have frozen the air in his lungs. Not hateful. Not angry, not the way he was used to vampires being angry. Not lost in fury, the way his own inner demon still raged against the humans' efforts to make earthly beauty out of what had once been the elder demons' own hell.

Just... predatory.

__

"Remember, to the great beasts, the world is really a simple place," the pompous words of a soon-to-be-munched late-night horror movie biologist floated through Angel's mind. _"Can I eat it, or will it eat me?"_

__

Predator. Right. Welcome to the Hellmouth, buddy. I've seen worse than you. "Get off Buffy's roof," Angel bit out.

"I do not believe you would appreciate that, Angel-san."

"Really," the vampire said dryly, circling the house to come as close as possible without jumping up there himself.

__

"Aa."

Japanese. Fine. Two can play at that. "And why would that be, Himura-san?" Angel asked in that tongue's scathing politeness.

"Do not," Kenshin said evenly, "Ask me to demonstrate, Angel-san."

"It seems something has disturbed your inner peace and tranquility," Angel said dryly. "Might one inquire as to the cause of this disquiet?"

"You have been within her room."

__

Short. To the point. Not a good sign. "We're friends."

"Unescorted. By night. From the strength of the scents, all night." Himura's voice lowered. "How many nights?"

__

Oh hell. Old-style, traditional Japanese. As in, spend three consecutive nights with an unrelated woman and you're married _traditional_. "It's not like that."

"Is it not?"

"She's sixteen," Angel pointed out.

"Of age in your living time, or in mine." Himura's left hand was hidden in the shadows, but Angel had a bad feeling it rested on his saya, thumb poised to loosen the blade.

__

Assassin or not, no way does a shrimp get off trying to intimidate me. "Then I'd say that makes it none of your business, doesn't it?"

Too fast to be believed, blue and red _blurred_-

And Himura was standing in front of him, eyes narrowed fire. "Her life is her own. Her choices, her own. But if you hurt her-"

A gust of wind, and only shadows remained.

__

"-I will find you."

* * *

Braid finally combed out into loose chestnut waves, Buffy took a bracing breath and brushed a few stray bits of lint off her sweatpants and tank top. Nodded, and opened her bedroom door, smiling at the creature of the night lounging on her bed. "Tada. Just little old 20th-century me."

Angel looked her over carefully. "Sure you're okay?"

__

I just combed high explosives out of my hair. I keep reaching for a gun I'm not carrying. And when I close my eyes... I remember what it is to be Death. "I'll live."

Angel sat up, watching her as she crossed the room. "I don't get it, Buffy. I asked around about _Gundam Wing_. Political double-crossing, giant robots, teenagers as hardened assassins... of all the people you could have gone as, why pick Duo Maxwell?"

"First off, I claim a _serious_ case of underestimation of the whole mind-warping aspect, due to unexpected slayage making me miss everything but the first few episodes and Xander's dog-eared copy of _Episode Zero_," Buffy replied, sitting next to him. Her hand drifted up to her cross. Angel's cross. "Second of all, Halloween's when you're someone you _aren't_. And last night, just for one night, I wanted to pretend I was someone who didn't have to lie... and you're not really listening..."

"Just - thought I heard something." Angel glanced away from her window, forcing a smile. "Sorry."

"Okay. Who mangled your ego?" Buffy demanded.

"It's nothing..."

"_Nothing_ doesn't make you act like Xander after I kept him from getting pummeled," Buffy pointed out. "Hello? Slayer? If there's something out there bad enough to give you the willies, I want to know about it."

"You already do." Angel smiled uneasily. "It's nothing to worry about. Really. Himura... just agreed to disagree with me about a few things." He lifted his eyebrows. "You could have gone as a nun."

"What, Sister Frank?" Buffy quipped. "Didn't think I could get you to go as Father Dowling. Besides, what do I know about taxis?" She reddened slightly. "Actually, I almost picked up this killer dress Ethan had for a French noblewoman." _'Killer' would have been right. Normal lady up against Spike? Ouch._ "You know, the kind of fancy girl you liked when you were my age."

"Oh, ho," Angel said dryly.

"What?"

"I hated the girls back then. Especially the noble women."

Buffy nodded, thinking of the Watcher diaries, and Angelus, and the few glimpses she'd had of Darla before Angel had staked her. "You did."

"They were just incredibly dull. Simpering morons, the lot of them. Oh, you still heard stories about sword-carrying scandals like Julie la Maupin, Grace O'Malley, Dark Agnes of Scotland - everybody loves good gossip, even if it's decades old - but I never actually _met_ anyone like that. I always wished I could meet someone... exciting." Angel looked her in the eyes. "Interesting."

"Really?" Buffy felt her pulse pick up. "Interesting how?"

"You know how."

"Still, I had a really hard day. You should probably tell me."

Smiling, Angel drew nearer. "You're right. I should."

Buffy moved closer. "Definitely."

His lips were chill and soft and wonderful, like rose petals on a dewy morning. Buffy cradled his face in her hands, leaning into the kiss...

__

Thump.

Startled by the knock, they broke apart.

Out in the hall, Joyce cleared her throat. "School night. I want you in bed by eleven." She paused. "And Angel? The next time you want to make out with my daughter, I advise you to come in the front door. Duo's not the only one who knows how to booby-trap windows."

Buffy winced. _Busted._

* * *

__

Llyfr o Nudd a Llygedyn - Welsh, Book of Mist and Ray of Light.

__

Rurouni - "Wandering swordsman". (Yes, Watsuki made this word up.)

__

Sumimasen - Excuse me.

__

Shinsengumi wa Shinsengumi - A Shinsengumi is (will ever be) a Shinsengumi.

__

Hitokiri wa hitokiri. - "A manslayer is a manslayer until the day he dies."

__

Shinju - Lovers' suicide, found in a lot of Japanese plays and literature. A "romantic solution" to situations of impossible love, whether by virtue of different classes (samurai and artisan, for example) or competing family duties ("your great-great-grandfather assassinated my great-great-grandfather, so the honor of my family demands I kill you", sort of thing).

__

Manriki-gusari - Weighted chain, sometimes with a hooking blade on the end to snare and slice.

__

Aa.- Informal yes.


	6. Chapter 6

Snow. Nothing but snow.

Kenshin walked into the white cloud of his own breath, stumbling in the half-blurred footprints carved in blowing drifts. Flakes caught in his eyelashes, melting into the blood running down his cheek.

The cold would kill him. Soon.

__

The cold won't have the chance.

But he couldn't remember why.

Lanterns flickered along his path, appearing out of blowing snow. Chill flakes shifted, turned to the soft caress of chrysanthemum petals.

__

I've been here before.

He knew it; even as he knew the petals were illusion, that he was walking into blizzard and hypothermia and his own bloody death.

But he had to walk. If he didn't walk, he'd be - alone...

__

"Anata..."

A blue scarf, whispering in the wind. Dark eyes, never laughing, sober with secrets. Long black hair, flowing free for one fire-touched night.

__

If I don't go with her, I'll have to go on alone.

"I'm waiting for you..."

It would be so easy. So easy to walk back into the blood, the death; to drown in his own guilt.

__

But I promised...

And there was something. Something he didn't remember.

Something that had melted the snow, so long ago, bringing back the soft bloom of cherry blossoms.

A long. elegant hand reached out to him, snow dripping off it red as blood. "Come to me, _anata_..."

Something that could save him.

__

"Kaoru!"

* * *

Giles rolled out of bed, smacking his wrist against the side-table as he involuntarily reached for his blade. _Gods, what-_

A soft, strangled whimper reached his ears; the sort that in any other soul would be an agonized scream.

__

But Himura's hidden from us so many times. He knows he can't make a sound. No matter the cost.

Memory still blurring _now_ and _then_, Giles stood to one side of his spare room's doorway and twisted the handle.

And jumped back, as a wakizashi impaled the door panel where an unwary man's heart would have been.

__

Good to know he can still throw, Giles thought as the door hurled open._ I think._ "Himura! Wake up, you damn idiot!"

The whimper cut off, turned to an inhuman growl, lit by paired glows of amber. "Oniwabanshuu, _die_-"

__

The shogun's ninja? Damn! "Kenshin!" Giles gritted through his teeth. "Rurouni!"

Silence.

"Kenshin," Giles said again, firmly. "Whatever it was, it wasn't real. You're under my roof. In California. You're safe."

More silence. A harsh pant, easing into slow, ragged breaths.

Giles let out a breath of his own. "If I come in there, is anything else edged heading my way?"

A torn gasp. _"Gomen. Gomen nasai..."_

Giles snorted. "You don't think I'd be foolish enough to stand in your line of fire, Battousai."

"I..."

"It's _over_," Giles stated bluntly. "No one's bleeding. No one's dead." He peered at the thin light filtering into the apartment. "And it's about time to get up now, anyway. You can help me make breakfast."

"It will all taste like blood."

__

I'm going to ignore that. I'm going to... no, I'd better not. "It is over, Himura. You were forgiven. A long time ago."

"Then why does it still hurt?"

A man's grief, with just a hint of a child's plea in it. _Someone, please, make it stop hurting._

"It's the price we pay for life, Battousai." Giles studied the blade embedded in his door, the faint blue sheen that whispered of more than ordinary steel. "Life. Sword-skill. The will and courage to save our friends and ourselves from the darkness. Nothing comes without a cost."

Silent as shadow, a red-haired wraith stepped into view. "And what price have you paid?"

__

One far too high. "I pray you never know."

Violet weighed him. Nodded slowly.

"Now come on," Giles said briskly. "Or I'll make you eat cold meal."

* * *

__

Transfer students, Principal Snyder thought, signing various pieces of school paperwork as he glared at the quiet young redhead sitting neatly in the chair before his office desk. _I_ hate _transfer students._

Sitting up neat and proper, good. Long hair and scar, bad. Blue long-sleeved shirt, gray jeans, charcoal belt and sneakers - neutral. About what you'd expect of the local moderately employed families in Sunnydale. _Almost_ enough to outweigh the nerve and inconvenience of coming in after the school year had already started.

At least the records on this one only said one family member. And a bachelor at that. With any luck the man wouldn't even notice when his ward inevitably added to the next list of school obituaries.

__

Maybe I can look forward to a nice entry next week. The school paper could use a little angst. Just the thing to get people's minds off that... _fiasco_ of a Halloween. The one night everything in town was supposed to be quiet. A key factor in keeping the Mayor's plans on an even keel; after all, if nothing happened on _Halloween_, supposedly the most supernatural night of the year, then nothing happened, right?

There were times he almost believed it himself.

And... why wasn't this teenager fidgeting?

He'd revamped the office with a vengeance after Flutie's "accident". Taken out anything that even hinted at soft and cuddly and nurturing repulsive little brats' feelings, redecorating with hints from a particular Philadelphia prison warden known for his firm grip on convicts, even beyond the grave. _Anybody_ should be fidgeting in here. Harris shivered in that chair; Rosenberg turned white and stammered. Even Summers couldn't sit still-

Violet eyes lifted to his, quietly innocent. "Is everything in order, Snyder-san?"

Snyder rapped the folder of paperwork together. "That's Principal Snyder to you, Heemura."

"Himura," the redhead pronounced mildly.

"Whatever." Snyder glared, noting with satisfaction how violet grew more distant, as if the boy was trying to will a wall between himself and authority. "Let's get one thing straight here. This is a public school. People like you come here because the law says you get one last chance to get an education before we toss you into the streets. If you can't handle it, the door's always open. Out." He waved the ridiculous records. _Home-schooled in Japanese. As if I can't tell when someone's trying to pull a fast one. Kid probably flunked out of somewhere preppy and the family's trying to cover up the embarrassment._ "A pair of our teachers have _graciously_ offered to see you get some tutoring help. Frankly, I don't see why they'd bother. That's the kind of woolly-headed thinking that leads to being eaten." He sneered. "So congratulations. You're not even in class yet and you're disrupting this school."

"_Ame futte ji katamaru._ Rained-on ground hardens." Himura smiled. "You would say... adversity builds character."

That smile, Snyder fumed, was _really_ getting under his skin.

But he had just the thing to crack it. He was the principal, after all; he had the power. And there was nothing to crush a new kid's spirit like starting him out in the worst class schedule possible; the one that would combine teachers at their nastiest point of the day with the homophobic bullies who'd make a pretty boy's life a living hell-

__

Cra-thump!

You didn't spend years as Sunnydale High's VP without learning to recognize the sound of a Chem Lab explosion. "You! Stay put. Don't do _anything_."

"One hears you, Principal-san. _Suru noha shippai nanimo shinai noha daishippai._"

Whatever. He left the papers scattered over his desk, marching down to drag the perpetrators to detention by their blown-out ears. Shouldn't be too hard to determine who was guilty; all he had to do was look for the soot...

Only the smoke-stains were evenly distributed class-wide, the damage seemed to have been confined to a lab bench no one had been using, and none of the usual suspects was talking.

__

Can't have been accidental, Snyder scowled, going over the lesson for that day with the confused teacher. _None of this should have blown up without help and... why is Summers grinning?_

One white flash of teeth against a face as smoke-black as the others, before she saw him and sobered. Yet there was still an odd, manic glitter in her eyes, even as she ducked behind a groaning Harris, blinking Rosenburg, and dazed Chase.

__

Violet eyes?

Snyder blinked, looking again. Green. Just like they should be. Though now the worst troublemaker in the school's hair seemed longer, and darker... unless that was just the smoke...

"I just don't know what happened," the chemistry teacher babbled. "One minute, nothing, the next-" He shook his head.

Snyder nodded, not bothering to place a name with the face. It was in the school files if he really needed it. Odds were sooner or later this guy would run into a giant she-mantis or something equally carnivorous, and he'd be just as glad not to know the name of the body. "Summers near any of it?" Forget the decision handed down by the mayor's office; all he needed was one excuse.

"What? No! Well, she was back there at the beginning of class, sure, just like half the rest of the students, getting material for the experiment... but unless you think the girl who's barely scraping by in here on C+ can put together a _time-delay_ smoke bomb..."

Point. Damn. "Detentions at your discretion. Starting with her." He let Summers feel his glare. "I'm sure she can use the time to do some _constructive_ school work."

A minute more to impress upon the sluggards they weren't getting out of school this easily, and he swept back to his office, head held high.

His... empty... office.

"Where is he?"

"Kenshin?" The school secretary looked up with a fond smile. "His class was going to start soon, and he had his books, so he left. Such a nice young man..."

"Had his books?" Impossible. No one could have the right set of texts for the schedule he was going to break that shrimp of a redhead with-

"The schedule's all set, and I've notified all his teachers," she nodded. "I guess Miss Calendar's right; all you have to do is give the computer a little attention, and it works like a dream."

"Schedule?" He hadn't made up a schedule yet! Mid-year transfers had particular forms to file, signed by principal, student, and guardian so no one could claim later their precious little brat hadn't known what he was getting into. Though Mr. Ni'itsu had made Snyder's fun-to-come incredibly easy, by sending his unsuspecting ward in with already-signed paperwork-

"Right here."

Snyder took the triply-signed form with an odd sinking feeling, recognizing the mix of classes and times inked in. Not the schedule from hell he'd meant to pack on thin shoulders, but a more sane round of classes any student who was a little shaky on his educational feet might take.

The same schedule kept by Harris. And Madison. And Summers.

__

Someone, Snyder thought darkly, _is going to_ pay _for this._

* * *

__

People. So many people.

Edging his way into the cafeteria, bento box under his left arm, Kenshin glanced about, trying to remember if he'd ever seen this many teenagers in one place. Chatting, flirting, exchanging the kind of sneers and shoves that, in the Bakumatsu, would have led to bloodshed-

__

But this is not the Bakumatsu. This is a high school, a place of learning, and no one here intends to draw a blade.

Kenshin's fingers brushed rayskin and braided silk, and he winced. _No one. Save, perhaps, me._

He couldn't help it. He'd lived with a blade at his side so long. To face so many strangers without it...

__

"Leave the wakizashi, if you must," Giles had said that morning. _"But you are not entering that building without a sword. I know you, Battousai. You have the training to strike without a blade - and the instincts to use those claws you now bear if cornered. And they_ will _corner you. They haven't the sense not to. Better to carry steel, and let that calm you, than gut a fool of a football halfback._

"And don't think I'm just doing this for you. That young pup Xander needs someone to show him a swordsman's manners."

The "pup" was easy enough to spot, white hair gleaming like a signal fire across the table-filled room as he walked toward Buffy and Willow with a tray full of... something. Several somethings, from the look of it, though if _that_ was what passed for food these days... _I've eaten field rations that looked healthier._

Kenshin slipped into a seat next to him, inclining his head to the still-smoky girls. "One thanks you for the distraction."

"Gaah!" Xander dropped the yellow cake-like creation he'd been shredding plastic off of, giving the ex-assassin a gold-eyed glare. "Don't _do_ that!"

"Eep!" Willow nodded.

"Fiddling the papers worked?" Buffy regarded the contents of his box with interest.

Kenshin nodded. "As you said, while he is glaring, he has _no_ idea what he is signing."

"Still can't believe anyone's fast enough to switch papers right under Herr Snyder's hands," Xander groused. "Even Sesshoumaru has to work to be that fast-" He stopped. Grimaced. Slowly and deliberately, started banging his head against the laminate table-top.

Willow flicked his ear. "And what do you think it's like for the rest of us? I almost called house-elves for breakfast!"

Ears twitching, Xander raised his face from the table. "Think you'd get one if you did?"

"Um, no," Willow admitted. "I'm pretty sure we don't have them in the real world. But with magic, the intent alone might set up an invitation. And then what might happen is I'd get the attention of a boggle or a boggart or something, and _sometimes_ they do things around the house, but other times they're worse than a poltergeist, and we might have to tear the whole house down to get rid of them, and-"

"Will. Breathe," Buffy advised.

"Breathing. Breathing... you brought your own lunch?" Willow peeked at the wrapped items Kenshin was taking out. Turned slightly green. "Um... is that sushi?"

"Hai," Kenshin nodded, unwrapping a set of chopsticks. Fish and rice rolled with seaweed might not taste as good with the smell of cheese wafting through the loud hall, but at least it was honest food.

"What are you complaining about?" Xander sniffed. "It's sushi, not sashimi. It's preserved." He pointed at the brown and red... thing, on his plate. "If you want raw, I think this thing's still wriggling." He grinned. "But not for long."

A snatch of claws, and Kenshin suddenly found himself missing a chopstick.

__

"Blades of Bamboo!"

Kenshin blinked. Stared at polished wood, still vibrating, driven half its length through the slice of odd loaf, the plate, the tray, and - he ducked to check - the table itself. Reddish juices oozed from the wound.

"Heh." Still grinning, Xander started tearing it apart with his fingers, slurping multicolored bits off his claws.

__

"Itadakimasu," Kenshin said warily.

"Yeah. That."

A slight movement beside him; a second pair of chopsticks slapped into his hand, offered by a shrugging Buffy. "Xander. Food," she said pragmatically. "These things happen." She peered at his lunch. "You know, I... _think_ that looks good. Not that I'm sure Duo's sci-fi food tastes anything like the real thing, though the smoke bomb definitely worked right... oooh, don't want to think about that..."

__

She'll let me feed her? I may have a chance after- stop thinking that, baka. She said she wanted your food, not that she wanted you _to feed her._

But he wanted to feed her. He wanted... to carry her away from here. To nuzzle the nape of her neck, right where a geisha would leave skin unpainted. To soothe all the longing for home and family that baka vampire could never give her...

__

That baka vampire is why you have to get this right the first time. Think of wild children. Of birds in winter. Move slowly. Carefully. Do not _frighten her._ "I wondered if some of you might want some, to help weave spell-memory and true-memory into one. There is more than enough-"

Claws swiped. Flinched back with a yelp, as the hilt of a katana hit the knot of nerves under Xander's wrist. "-To share," Kenshin finished dryly.

Growling under his breath, Xander shook out his hand. "All right, all right. Touchy. Guess a little guy like you had to scrap for everything - hey! What's he think he's doing?"

Brows raised, Kenshin glanced across the room in time to see Jonathan present a startled blonde girl with a pure white rose, seemingly pulled from the substance of a folded paper napkin. A girl with a scent of- He inhaled sharply, matching that dark oddness of air with a nettle-prickle in his ki-sense. _Witchcraft. Not the same as the sorcerer I slew - yet it_ is _that darkness._

"No way is Amy going to fall for that," Xander said in a voice dripping rough envy. Stared, as pink bloomed in the young witch's cheeks. "Buff! Tell me she's not going to fall for that."

"Oh, I don't know, Xander," Buffy observed, leaning back as the cafeteria gabble rose and fell, the female half of it refocusing from Cordelia's mini-court with Harmony and the football team to the school nobody's unexpected opening move on the Sunnydale dating scene. "Roses rate pretty high on the breaking-ice scale... Wills? Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing, or did an apocalypse finally slip past Giles' books?"

"Sitting down, good," Willow agreed faintly.

Kenshin glanced about, trying to determine what it was that had upset his friends. Their ki didn't feel as if there was real danger, but there was definitely shock. "What is it?"

"More like, what it isn't," Xander said wryly. "Queen C, _not_ the center of attention. And not kicking up a fuss about it."

"She almost looks... relieved." Willow's eyes were wide.

__

And this surprises you? Kenshin gazed toward the lavender-haired young woman, memory providing the translucent ghost of a tall, elegant doctor, long hair black as her sorrow for every death Spider's Web had caused. Smiled as an emerald gaze brushed his; the faint, shadowed smile of the rurouni, who also knew guilt too deep for words.

__

Cordelia. Megumi. Shido. Whatever you have done, whoever you have been... you have always been my friend.

Here, within Buffy's heart... it's bright, I know. Almost too bright to bear. It hurts. It bleeds.

But the light is a good place to walk.

Come home...

Cordelia placed her hands on the table. Started to straighten.

"I mean, who does he think he is? James Bond?" Harmony snickered, causing the rest of the table to dissolve in titters.

__

I can't, Cordelia mouthed, shoulders hunching as her coterie made snide observations on how long Jonathan could keep up the charm before chewing on his knees. _I just - can't._

Kenshin sighed. Inclined his head. _Time_, he reminded himself. _They need more time._ We _need more time._

Time, hell. That was one of his family bleeding over there. He wanted to fix this, and he wanted to fix it _right now-_

__

Patience. Wait. _Trying to fix all the world is what got you into Kyoto in the first place,_ ne?

"That's so sad," Willow said softly. "I never realized... how sad Cordelia looks."

"Probably because she's too busy dicing us into bite-size chunks with the latest fashion riffs," Xander quipped. Smacked a palm over his breastbone. "Spike heel. Straight to heart... what are you doing?"

Stroking a pen across a marbled-green square of what Giles had called sticky pad paper, Kenshin signed his name, and folded it into a neat triangle. "Informing her that our kendo club has Snyder-san's signed permission to come into being, and that Giles-san has decreed it shall first meet in the library, so we might determine a good location to practice our more-" How best to put it? "-area-affecting techniques." One could practice _Ryuu Kan Sen_ inside, certainly, but one properly-done _Ryuu Tsui Sen_, and the floor would be shattered. To say nothing of a _Dou Ryuu Sen_, or Xander's own _Kaze no Kizu_.

__

A technique I truly wish to see again. It felt _like the Earth Dragon Strike; a manipulation of ki. Yet more. There was... a scent to it? As if the blade cut more than earth and air..._ Kenshin shook off the thought. Time enough later to pounce on Xander and learn how he'd cut through Rayne's wards and door in one savage slash. As he _would_ learn, if only by watching; just as he had learned Okita's Tennen Rishin, Saitou's Gatotsu, and Serizawa's iron fan techniques.

__

Never stop learning. Never.

And from what little he'd seen last night, Cordelia's Shido might have her own techniques to teach. "Could one of you pass this to her?"

"Actually, 'one of us' had better be you," Buffy pointed out pragmatically.

"Less social stigma," Willow nodded. "I mean, so far you're not a geek, or... not really athletic... or known for school-related pyromania..."

"It was just the auditorium," Buffy said defensively. "It wasn't even this auditorium! It's not like I dropped a Gundam on the school, unlike _some_ people I could... oh, I am _so_ going to play the anvil chorus on Ethan's head when I catch him!"

"Long story short? You're about the only one of us who can rotate in Cordelia's orbit and not die from spontaneous social combustion," Xander observed. "Though as far as her evil bleached-blonde minions go, after sitting with us, you're basically screwed."

And he'd thought the point of the Revolution was to make all the classes equal. _So. Even a century later, the Revolution has not ended._ Shrugging, Kenshin balanced the folded triangle on thumb and forefinger. Calculated the angles and air currents. Waited for a brief lull in table-hopping, and flicked.

Green folds spun through the air. Whipped sideways in the breeze from a school ventilation grate. Skimmed past a band member's glue-spiked hairdo. And dove - not into the open hands he'd intended - but between the opened buttons of Cordelia's shirt.

Kenshin swallowed. Felt his heart sink at Xander's bark of laughter. "Oro..."

"Way to go, Kenshin!" The grinning teen pounded him on the back. "Man, I knew you had it in you!"

And given Sano's usual dealings with Megumi before they'd married... Kenshin saw the outburst of yelping and giggles as Cordelia fished his note out of her clothing, and wished he had a ninja's training to vanish in plain sight. "One is dead, _ne?_"

"Maybe even deader than you think." Willow gulped as some very large teens, one sporting a bruise that looked suspiciously like a hanyou's fist, scraped their chairs back and headed for the Scoobies' table.

"Great. The Neanderthals." Buffy started to stand. "I'll handle it-"

Kenshin shook his head. "I have seen such testings before, Buffy-dono." In the Kiheitai, and elsewhere. Though then, he'd often been too young to reply in kind, assassin or no. "They are less than intelligent... but often, unavoidable." Unhurried, he stood.

The muscled teens started to grin.

Kenshin stepped away from their table, and nodded slightly. _Come, then. If you will._

The bruised blond stopped, suddenly wary. A friend of his slowed, glancing between the bruise and the slight redhead waiting so patiently.

But two came on, all but licking their lips.

__

No killing, Kenshin reminded himself, letting the first insults pass with barely a flicker of eyes. _Try not to draw the blade, if you can... must remember to ask Shishou if anyone forges sakabatou these days..._

One reached out to shove him-

And found his hand tangled in a folding cafeteria chair, which was skidding into the path of the passing swimming coach, who stumbled, clipboard sailing from his grip to ricochet off the wall, smacking into a hapless senior's lunch tray and sending meatloaf, vanilla pudding, and a hot wave of coffee over the entire mess.

Kenshin sidestepped the flailing, screeching, steaming mass of humanity, wincing at the volume as the pudding-smeared duo tried to defend themselves from their fellow student and teacher. Gave the bruised blond a tilted look of question, complete with arched red brow.

Smoldering, the blond stalked off.

"You are _so_ getting detention," Buffy muttered.

* * *

__

You know you're having a bad day when you can track down the librarian by the growling. Angel lifted himself out of the trapdoor set among the library's dustiest shelves, double-checking that no hint of afternoon sun shone through the overhead lights. Knowing which tunnels led under and into the library was a two-edged sword; great for getting in at any hour when it was research or die, lousy if it was still daylight and everyone else was too engrossed in the next upcoming Apocalypse to pull the shades. He stepped softly out of the stacks, debating whether or not to clear his throat.

Setting the library phone down with a decisive click, the Watcher tapped his fingers against the desktop. "I suspect you may as well stay in practice for your demonic cohorts, Angel, but I assure you I can hear you perfectly well."

__

Great. Just great. Well, at least Jenny's illusion-stones were working. Though now that he was looking, Angel could make out the hellhound's fangs and cropped ears under the librarian's shadow of normality. "So. Bad luck with your contacts on the curse-breaking?"

"Hmm? Ah." Giles glanced at the phone. "No, that was a rather misguided attempt on my part to verbally throttle some good sense out of the Sunnydale Police Department. I don't know what I was expecting, any officers who could consistently put down 'gangs on PCP' for vampire attacks are hardly going to be interested in tracking down one idiot chaos mage..." He smiled wryly. "Or should I say, I do know what I was expecting. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police they are _not_."

"Kind of a given," Angel agreed. 1894 Tokyo had been a lot harder for a vampire to stay active in than most modern-day cities. Police armed with guns were annoying. Police armed with swords, as Saitou had been, were potentially fatal. "Any luck on the curse-breaking?"

"The situation will require long-term research, it seems." Giles arched a dark brow. "You're concerned."

Concerned? Yeah, _concerned_ was one way of putting it. "Giles, in case you hadn't noticed, you've got a Jedi in the computer room-"

"Hmm, yes; she's been chasing down a few nasty viruses Moloch left in the system."

"-Demons in your classes, not to mention your mirror-"

Giles polished his glasses, set them back in his shirt pocket. "_Hanyou_, to be precise."

"-And a fifteen-year-old lunatic assassin in Buffy's head!"

"She is the Slayer," Giles said coolly. "One could quite well argue Duo is in good company."

__

In good- Duo's a killer! She's a sixteen-year-old girl! Angel fisted his hands at his sides, blew out a breath he didn't need. _Stay calm. Stay calm. He's British. He probably doesn't like anime any more than you do._ "Have you ever _seen_ Gundam Wing?"

"Xander's provided me with a brief synopsis." Giles leveled a look at him. "Much as I understand your concern for the girl, Angel, my responsibility lies with the Slayer."

"Who doesn't need to know how to fight wars in space!" Angel pointed out. "Look, maybe you don't have any mind-wiping spells, but if Jenny's a Jedi she should be able to come up with something-"

"Neither you nor I have any idea what a Slayer _might_ need to know," Giles cut across his words coldly. "And I suggest you examine that thought very, very carefully. Even if you were not proposing to inflict mental manipulations on a girl who has suffered more than enough of those already, I don't need to have been immersed in the movies to tell you how perilously close tampering with memory skates to the Dark Side."

__

But it's the right thing to do! "You _can't_ just let things go on like this!"

"I am a _Watcher_, Angel. While I have some small knowledge of magic, I have no counter-spells, no incantations, no power to undo what has been done." Giles slashed a hand across, cutting off protest before Angel could voice it. "And I _will not_ deal with those creatures that might. Good lord, man! You're a student of the occult; you must have some idea how few entities would _dare_ tamper with those the Phantom Queen has claimed for her own!"

Damn few. Call her Morrigan, Hecate, Lamashtu; the Queen of Air and Darkness played no favorites, blessing and cursing angels and demons alike. Storm-cloud robe glistening with rain and blood, serpent-necklace dripping poison on the wind, she roamed the night where and when she would, aloof and untamed as the owls and wild black hellhounds of her Hunt...

Angel stiffened, unbeating heart clenched in a vice. All the lore and stories of eighteenth-century Ireland roared to life in his brain, screaming that no matter how much an ally Giles had been, he was an enemy now. Lost. Inhuman. _Tainted._ "You're _hers_."

__

Smack.

"I," Giles growled in the vampire's ringing ears, "belong to _no one_."

__

That - hurt, Angel realized numbly, cold flesh stinging as blood rushed to repair the injury. _That actually_ hurt.

A human's backhand, even a Watcher's, should never have hurt.

Giles shook out clawed fingers, deliberately turning his back. "I suggest you root that notion out and give it a proper pyre before you encounter Buffy again. For your own sake, if you will not do it for her." He glanced over his shoulder, ruby gleaming in dark eyes. "After all, nothing engages Shinigami's attention like a quivering coward."

Okay, that was it. Maybe he hadn't been the most noble and upright guy out there when he'd met Darla. Maybe he'd spent a lot of years since the curse just drifting, lost in the horror of what he'd become; unable to even end his own unlife, for fear of ending up in hell right alongside the demon within him. Maybe he'd even admitted being afraid to Buffy. But she was the Slayer. She was _supposed_ to face off against evil.

Not have it lodged by spell in her own mind...

Light footsteps in the hall; Angel ducked out of sight, peeking through an empty space in the social studies shelves. "Yes?" Giles asked testily.

"Mr. Giles." The slightly spike-haired student in rock band-scruffy jeans and long-sleeved shirt nodded. "Kendo?"

"Good lord. Er, excuse me, Mr.-"

"Oz," the teen supplied.

The librarian blinked, but made no wizard jokes. "I knew Willow meant to post news of its formation on the school bulletin board - I understand that's required for any new school organization - but I hadn't realized the location would reach the school grapevine as well."

"Didn't." Oz held out crumpled green paper.

Giles unfolded it. Gave Oz a more careful once-over, as if noting something suspected, but not unwelcome. "You read Japanese?"

Oz shook his head. "Kenshin. Cordelia. Xander. Swords on Halloween."

"Neatly deduced. I believe we'll be starting..." The librarian glanced at his watch. "Well, as soon as your fellow students are released from durance vile." He gave the boy a wry smile. "In the meantime - we set this up in rather a hurry. Perhaps you'd be willing to help me sort out some of my practice gear?"

A nod.

__

Great. The quiet type. Angel leaned against his concealing shelves, resigned to lingering in the most boring books ever found in the demesne of public learning as the student and librarian-turned-hellhound turned out some of the Watcher's less suspicious armaments. "I'm not afraid of her," he said in an undertone, just loud enough for a half-demon's ears to catch.

"Of course you're not." Giles' lip curled. _"Ahou."_

* * *

__

Ooo. Big hunk of wood. A Slayer's best friend, Buffy thought, jabbing air with the shaped oak Giles called a _bokken_. She pirouetted across the auditorium stage, trying to find her balance with this new toy. _Kind of short on the sharp and pointy angle, though._

Giles cleared his throat. "While there are numerous techniques to use the point, the usual aim of the katana is to slash, not stab."

"Spoil my fun," she grumbled.

"Yes, well... I would be remiss in my duties if I failed to point out that even with simple wood, such slashing techniques, properly applied, tend to result in one's opponent rather resembling a turkey turned loose in a nest of slavering maniacs with hammers."

Buffy pictured said result applied to one annoying bleached-blond vampire, and felt the grin light up her face like sunrise.

Half-hidden in the shadows of tied curtains, Kenshin studied her movements. "Giles-san. If we are truly unconcerned with proper tournament form, the Hirazuki might well be learned early."

Giles arched a dark brow.

Kenshin gave him an innocent, violet blink. "Training must fit the times, _ne?_"

"Hirazuki?" Buffy put in, looking askance at the trade of Significant Looks. This was _her_ Giles. Her Watcher. It was just plain _weird_ for someone to come along who acted like he knew Giles better than she did.

__

Only he doesn't. Not really. He knows who Giles used _to be. Big diff._

And it had to be a big diff. 'Cause if it wasn't, that would mean Kenshin knew her, too. And he didn't. Because she was so _not_ interested in a fuzzy-wuzzy little cute ex-assassin half-demon who dropped notes down Cordelia's blouse and charmed her mother with shy manners.

Not. At all.

"A rather atypical move in most sword-styles, but one well-known to the Shinsengumi," Giles said dryly. "A flat thrust that aims for the heart."

Buffy put that together with wood, and Slayer strength, and felt somewhat mollified.

"B-b-but why _here?_" Willow squeaked, eyes darting off the stage to the rows of empty seats ranked facing them. Her hands were knotting together, her face was pale, and her hair was all but standing on end.

__

Yep, I never got over Oedipus _either_, Buffy thought, remembering Giles, a guillotine, and one nasty organ-eating demon. "Will has a point, Giles. Isn't this Drama Club turf?"

"They won't be here today, and likely not for two or three weeknights hereafter," her Watcher stated. "Apparently the vast majority of them spent Halloween in various historical outfits. Musketeers, Crusaders, French noblewomen; one rather shy young thing even blackened her teeth and went as a _tayuu_, which may make things rather interesting... er, never mind. In short, while they may not remember who they were that night, the persona seems to have dragged a very rough brush over their subconscious. The end result being that Jenny's having to re-teach them all that computers are _not_ possessed by demons." He paused. "At least, not currently."

__

And what the heck is a tayuu? Buffy cast a frown Kenshin's way, not trusting that look of bland innocence any farther than she could throw it.

__

Amend last thought: any farther than Willow _could throw it_, the Slayer thought dryly. _Without using magic._

"In any event, this should do for us to start the most basic maneuvers, and determine whether some - er - interested persons we seem to have acquired intend to remain, or not. In which case I suppose we may as well train them; Slayer or not, Sunnydale could do worse than to have more kenjutsu students on the streets-"

"Oz will stay."

Giles shot a frown Kenshin's way. "You've met the young man? In this day and age, the musically inclined tend not to engage in martial arts... Oh, _please_ tell me it was only my overworked imagination..."

Kenshin smiled.

"Of course. It only lacked Myojin to complete the set." Giles rolled his eyes. "What in all the kami's names did I do to deserve this?"

"Upheld _Makoto_, in this world and beyond," Kenshin observed, tilting his head toward the hall doors. "Oz has found them."

Buffy eyed the scruffy musician following Jonathan through the doorway, preceding Xander and Cordelia. Memory kicked in, matching Oz's face with a guy she'd caught a glimpse of during the whole Ampata-World Culture Dance-Inca mummy incident. _Since when did I start sorting students by supernatural incident rather than social clique?_ she thought, depressed. _Oh yeah. Since knowing who was where when at the last outbreak of weird became Clue Numero Uno in figuring out who was most likely to be eating someone's brains._

Sighing, Buffy tried to push that thought aside, instead focusing on the twitch of Xander's ears, the slight flush of Cordelia's cheeks as she carefully looked anywhere but at one of Sunnydale High's lamest. _And just what have they been up to?_

"Good. We're all here," Giles said briskly. "Let's begin."

* * *

__

Boooor-ing, Xander almost yawned, working his way through the basic stances beside Kenshin. _Boring, boring, boring-_

__

Smack!

"Ow!"

"Focus on the present, Xander-san." Kenshin finished the _kesagiri_, for all the world as if he'd never broken stance to rap anyone over the head with the blunt side of his blade.

"You focus," Xander muttered. "I know this stuff already!"

"Not so well as you may think, or that would not have caught you," Kenshin pointed out. "And Oz does not _know_ that you know."

Yeah, point; the less people who knew the Scoobies were actually dangerous, the less chance it had of getting back to the vamps. Which was all of the good; from what he'd seen of Angel and the many, many vampires Buffy had dusted, one bloodsucker might be no problem, but twenty could slow down even a hanyou who didn't look sharp. "It's just- I-" He raked claws through white hair, trying to put into human words something rooted in too much human noise, too little feel of earth and grass under his feet, and that ever-present nauseating stink of Angel in the school air. "_Damn_ it..."

And it didn't help that he could scent that same restlessness wafting off Kenshin; a need to move, breathe, _run_.

"Out, both of you."

Xander sheathed his blade. "G-man?"

"You're not _here_, Xander. That's perilous to everyone else in this room." The Watcher switched his glare to Kenshin. "Three laps around the school. At least. Now. I don't want to see either of you again until you're both dripping."

Kenshin bowed, and headed for the nearest door. Xander shrugged at Buffy as she slashed air, gave a shaky-gripped Willow an encouraging wave, and dodged Cordelia's smirk. _Minefield. I'd be better off in a minefield._

Xander skipped out into the hall with guilty relief. "Hey! There's a side door out this way. Takes us right into the courtyard."

__

"Arigatou." Kenshin followed him outside with almost-indecent haste. "The secretary gave me a school map, yet I am still matching symbols to reality. There seem to have been some... repairs needed, since the last time it was drawn."

"Oh yeah. Thank you, thank you..." Xander buffed his claws on his shirt, flushing out his lungs with warm night air. Still smelled faintly like vamps, not that he expected anything else in the middle of Sunnydale. But at least it didn't smell like _that_ vamp. He glanced around for potential witnesses, saw none, and set off at an easy lope. "Damn it, I figured the G-man would snap back into British-stuffy today. Enough weirdness. Time to tilt things back to normal. Or as close as we can get. But where does he get off telling us _we're_ off?"

"While he teaches skill you have not yet learned, he is the sensei," Kenshin pointed out as they jogged. "And... concentration has not been the easiest to grip fast this night, that it has not."

Yeah. Three guesses why. And the first two didn't count. "He's _here_," Xander growled, heading toward the football field. Careful to make sure they stuck to the shadows, away from the grunting as the Razorbacks practiced; the last thing they needed was to catch Larry and co.'s attention. The idea was subtlety, after all; and it was hard to be subtle about putting half a dozen Neanderthal-wannabes in traction.

__

"Hai."

"The school stinks of him!"

__

"Hai."

Xander breathed through his teeth, glad of the restraining weight of a sword at his side. Well, sort of glad. "He's probably heading in there right now, leaning over her to correct her swing-"

"No."

"How the hell do _you_ know?"

"I do not," Kenshin admitted, matching him step for step even as Xander pushed their pace beyond human. "But she is the Slayer, _ne?_ And Giles-san has known Angel is a vampire, and not asked his assistance to train her before?"

"Well, no... how the hell did you know that?"

"I did not," Kenshin said softly. "But cursed or not, friend or not, Angel is a vampire. And I know a Shinsengumi's sense of duty."

Xander worked through that as they rounded the building once, then twice, not grudging the extra distance it took to stick to the shadows. A week ago even one lap like this would have left him panting; now, it was just enough to start warming up. _He lets Deadboy help with the research, he knows Buffy's fought with the guy against vamps and other uglies..._

__

But when you're in the middle of a melee, you just get glimpses of what's going on, Inuyasha's memories pointed out, drawing on all the chaos and confusion of every supernatural battle Xander had ever been in. _Unless you're really good, or the thing trying to gnaw on you is really pathetic, you don't have_ time _to watch what the rest of the guys fighting by you do._

Watching somebody spar - that's _when you can find all the holes._

Which is why Naraku and bastards like him take over people's minds. Nobody can do more damage than your best friends... "_Shimatta._ He's protecting her? From Angel?"

"And guarding himself, as well," Kenshin observed, skirting a dance of light from the headlights of a late-arriving football parent. "From what Shishou has told me, the Watcher has not the strength of a Slayer, that he does not. Which means his only defense against the creatures she faces is that they do not know what skills he has."

Sneaky. Xander liked it. Though he'd like it better if Angel wasn't within three miles of the girls. Any of them.

Any _of them, oh treasurer of the We Hate Cordelia club?_ a wry part of him asked. _Of course, given what you were up to a little while ago, your club membership is probably on_ very _thin ice._

"I... admit to some small confusion," Kenshin said carefully, as they entered the third round. "Your manner speaks of great admiration for Buffy-dono, and Willow-dono's speaks of the same for you, yet the scents between you and Cordelia-dono..."

"That's none of your f- _damn_ business, all right?" _Willow? Nah. She's my bud! The Willmeister. Pals forever._ Wills would probably be glad he was letting Cordy gnaw on his neck; she hated to see people suffer, and while stored blood took the edge off the half-Unseleighe's thirst, he could smell that it was like eating potato chips. Sooner or later you had to give in and get real food.

__

And what the heck does he mean, admiration? Buffy is- is-

Well, she was _hot_. And straight-up. Very definitely not the shrinking violet or ditzy blonde most of his classmates were, and without that acid tongue Cordelia honed to a fine edge. Hottest of all, the small blonde was tougher than a pile of quarterbacks; loathe Larry as he would for the remark, Xander could see why every lame-brain within ten miles would delude themselves into thinking they were manly enough to make a play for the Slayer.

"Perhaps it is not," Kenshin acknowledged. "Yet I know the taking of blood leaves fox-spirits, at the least, vulnerable of heart to the donor. I would not be a good friend to Cordelia-dono if I did not ask your feelings toward her."

A good _friend?_ To Cordelia? Come on. They were _teenage guys_. Kenshin had tossed a note down her shirt, for goodness' sake!

But... Kenshin's scent when he spoke of her, or Willow, wasn't any more interested than Miroku's when he spied the next pretty girl. Not at all like the scents that accompanied the hentai monk's silent glances - and not-so-silent gropes - at one particular demon-slayer.

Though when you allowed for the kitsune flavor, it was all _too_ like the scent of the monk about to thwack him over the head with a _shakujo_ when he made Kagome cry...

Finishing the lap, Xander glanced for watchers, then leapt for the school roof. Turned to invite Kenshin to follow-

Red hair was already behind him.

__

Man. That guy is too _quiet._

Xander tossed his hair back, lightly fisting his claws. "Have you ever gotten involved with somebody you really, really shouldn't have?"

Violet eyes went distant. _"Hai."_

__

Okay, sore spot. "So." Xander shrugged. "That's what me and Cordelia would be like. Her, top of the social ladder. Poise, class, and _mucho dinero_. Me, nobody. The fact that we're even breathing the same air is a colossal joke on the part of whatever sadistic maniacs invented public schooling."

"I am... familiar with such situations."

"Yeah, right," Xander snorted. "Come on. Samurai? Maybe you went ronin and had to eat road dust, but _nobody_ had the right to talk down to you-"

"I was not born to a clan name, Xander-san."

Xander shut his mouth before an errant moth could fly in. "But... you..."

"Hiko found an orphan on a battlefield, and brought him home. Taught him. Gave him a name, to ward off the suspicions of those who carried two swords." Violet was fathomless. "I have loved two women in my life, and both of them were samurai."

__

Okay, now we're really getting too deep for me. "Guess we should be getting back in."

"Do you intend to splash in a basin first?"

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. He did say dripping." And three laps hadn't even winded either of them. Xander shook his head. _Man, this is going to take some getting used to._ "Damn it, I was hoping to run off being cooped up in walls all day."

"There is another option," Kenshin observed. "If you trust me enough with edged steel."

Xander stared.

Violet lightened, glinting steel-blue. "You did say you knew the basic moves that make up paired kata." Kenshin tilted his head, indicating the shingled roof under them. "And the terrain should introduce some small level of challenge."

Xander's grin flashed fangs. "Oh, you are _so_ on." _This should be fun. If short._

Two parries and a fall later, he revised that to, _Okay, maybe it'll take a couple more minutes._

Several leaps, a few mid-air sword passes, and a blade-disarm after that, there were shreds of shingle fluttering in the wind and a wicked amber gleam in blue eyes. "Damn," Xander panted, shaking out a stinging wrist as he went after his sword. _If I could connect, I'd squash him; kitsune are a hell of a lot more fragile than inu. But he's not letting me._ "Where the hell did you pick up that kind of speed?"

"Trying to outrun Shishou."

Xander blinked. _Is he-? Yeah, he's serious._ "Just tell me you're not holding back."

Silence.

"Kenshin!"

"This is practice, Xander-san," the swordsman said reluctantly. "And we left the bokken with the others. I _cannot_ use my full skill or speed to face you. Not with a katana."

"Why the hell not?"

Kenshin sighed. Walked up to one of the small metal stovepipes set into the roof to draw in air those few times the school needed to run the heat. Nodded, and backed up, motioning Xander aside and away. "Watch."

One moment Kenshin was twenty feet from steel, the next-

The seared heat of sliced air and auras smacked into Xander's nose, curling from the blue slash of focused ki trailing Kenshin's blade.

__

"Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, Battou-jutsu!"

With a thin _ping_, the top of the pipe slid away. The remaining tube shivered. Shrieked.

Shattered, scattering slivers of steel across the shingles.

Xander blew out a breath, making a mental note to bring the fire-rat robes for these little after-school bouts. _At least G-man will be happy. We're both dripping now._ "Okay. So... you can use youki to fight. So don't. I'm not using _Kaze no Kizu_."

"I cannot _not_ use it, Xander-san. That _is_ Hiten Mitsurugi." Blade sheathed, sober violet turned his way. "Every move focuses ki. Every move... kills." Kenshin shook his head. "With a bokken, I could face you with Kamiya Kasshin. I would be unlikely to forget that I was only sparring, and not battling for my life. With a katana - no. It is too dangerous."

"Oh, gee, somebody trying to kill me. Like that's never happened before," Xander quipped.

"We do not _know_ how reliable your spell-wrought memories are," Kenshin said firmly. "Giles-san says you have faced evil here, hai - but I was a killer for _years_, Xander. Death is the first weapon to my hand. Mercy, I only learned later." He looked aside. "I have lost much. If I misjudged a strike... and youki is less tame than ki, battou-jutsu should _only_ have sliced..." Clawed hands fisted. "Forgive me, if I seem to shame your skills when I doubt my own ability to pull a killing blow."

"Oh," Xander managed. "So... this really is back to school for you, too."

Kenshin grimaced, but nodded. "Back to school, yes. Although... is it always like this?"

Xander cracked his knuckles. "History fit to bore you to death. Chemistry, where one idiot who may go down in infamy dumped sodium down the drain to blow out the plumbing. English, where believe it or not, the _Lord of the Flies_ actually has nothing to do with demons. Though it ought to. Ugh. Yeah, it's always like this." He shuddered. "The wonders of modern education. If the demons don't get you, the pop quizzes will."

__

"Hai." Kenshin's smile was wry. "You endure years of this torment?"

"Yep. High school. Four years of hell, horror, and humiliation. It _might_ be easier if we weren't smack on top of a Hellmouth. Maybe." Xander grinned. "And the fun part is... we get to do it all again tomorrow."

"Oro..."

* * *

"_Youkia... youki..._ pox on it all, look up the spelling later. Try _Japanese demon..._"

The cursor blinked at Ethan, cheerful counterpoint to the still-throbbing knot on his head. The chaos mage glared back at the screen, not caring if anyone in the Nevada cyber-cafe at this ungodly hour of morning caught him threatening a harmless search engine. No one sane was up at six, anyway.

"Right, far too many thousands of pages," Ethan muttered. "Be a bit more specific, then. _Demon of Kyoto_... red hair... very very sharp sword... hmm, may as well throw in _heaven_, can't be that many hanyou with blessed blades..." He frowned. There had been a name that night. What had Ripper called the hanyou?

__

"Battousai's killed more people in one night than you or I ever managed in all our arrogance and idiocy..."

__

Battousai. Ethan typed his best approximation, breathed a quiet incantation to bias the machine to sites relating to true magic, and hit _Enter_.

The computer chewed on that a minute, then blinked up a set of sites.

"Huh. Never knew the Japanese had a Revolution as well... oh, bloody _hell_..."

The chaos mage read, and gulped, and swore a silent oath to be sure that idiot Bengal was dead beyond any hope of resurrection.

__

Legendary assassin... sword and shield of the Ishin Shishi... living guardian of Tenchuu... _master of the ancient demon-slaying style Hiten Mitsurugi... the Demon of Kyoto._

Hitokiri Battousai.

Scrolling down through various listings of chaos, mayhem, and bloodshed Battousai had reportedly committed over five years of revolution, Ethan rubbed his tingling neck. _Damn me. Ripper wasn't bluffing._

But how had he _known-?_

Hang on a moment. Here was a site that didn't look like the others. More on the light side than he liked to play with; maintained by stuck-up, sober ascetics too concerned with the soul's fate beyond life to pay attention to the demons chewing on their own backsides. Almost, he clicked on past; what did questions of Heaven and redemption have to do with the bloody menace sure to be on his trail?

But his spell would have biased the search engine to things he _needed_ to know. Ethan rolled his eyes, braced himself for a blast of piety, and touched the mouse.

__

FAQ: Surely you can't mean that any _sin will be forgiven? What about assassins?_

A: No less an authority than Origen argued that even the Morning Star might be forgiven at the last. True, it might be argued that Lucifer was a Power, and so more likely to experience true and complete remorse than any human. But even the bloodiest murderer, if he regrets and atones for his deeds with a true heart, might be granted grace.

In fact, this very question has been posed to an Oracle known to be of true power and pure heart, who reported that indeed, some whose hands were stained in blood later repented and were saved by the grace of the Powers That Be, residing to this very hour in the Place Beyond we call Heaven. Some named were a dhampir born to Dracula's own damned bloodline; a dragon-slayer known as Bowen; a former assassin called the Demon of Kyoto, Hitokiri Battousai...

Ethan blinked, screen turning fuzzy as he thought. And leaned back. And finally, slowly, smirked.

"Oh, clever. How very, _very_ clever..."

A soul escaping Hell shivered the ether so loudly, it'd wake any sensitive within miles. One leaving Heaven should have created vibrations so strong psychics in Canada would be shocked awake for weeks. To say nothing of drawing half the intelligent demonic attention in the world, all bent on slaughtering a living, breathing example of the Powers that had driven them from this reality.

Should have. And Ethan should have felt it. The Mayor should have. Even I'm-so-tweedy-I'm-not-Ripper-anymore Giles should have. But they hadn't.

__

Because last night, Chaos itself was set free.

On a Hellmouth, no less. With - as his belated research had revealed - the magic of the Morrigan herself to back it; one of the few creatures neither the Powers nor the Senior Partners dared cross lightly. One brilliant, inspired spell, that had spawned enough Light and Darkness and pure, raw magic to make all of Sunnydale a blaze of power so bright, any psychic might as well have stared into the sun.

So bright, one tiny, tiny hole might have opened between this reality and that Other. Just a crack of Light. Just for a moment.

Just enough that a soul _determined_ to escape, _willing_ to allow itself to be embodied once more - not in magic, nor mortal flesh and blood, but the shadowy in-between of a hanyou...

A soul that had once been avowed the very guardian of Chaos, wreaking Hell on earth in the name of Heaven's own Justice...

Might slip, like an assassin, right past all eyes watching to prevent it.

"Refill, sugar?" The graveyard-shift waitress gave him a jaundiced look, shifting her weight to the least sore of her feet.

"If you'd be so kind." Ethan smiled, nodding toward one of the finer blends available. "It seems the week is looking up."

After all... it wasn't every day the Powers ended up owing you a _favor_...

__

Owari.

* * *

__

Anata - "You". Used by a wife for her husband.

__

Gomen. Gomen nasai. - Forgive me.

__

Suru noha shippai nanimo shinai noha daishippai. -- lit. Doing is a mistake, not doing is a huge mistake.

__

Itadakimasu - "I am about to partake"; said before a meal.

__

Ryuu Kan Sen - Dragon's Nest Flash (or Strike); a rapid-strike technique.

__

Ryuu Tsui Sen - Dragon Hammer Strike.

__

Dou Ryuu Sen - Earth Dragon Strike.

__

Kaze no Kizu - Scar of the Wind; striking where two auras clash together, to do an impressive amount of damage. According to its first mention in the Inuyasha manga, it can be done with _any_ sword, not just Tetsuseiga.

__

Ahou - idiot, fool.

__

Tayuu - sometimes Romanized as _tayu_. A high-class courtesan of about 16th to 18th century Kyoto, still known of and familiar in historical and fictional literature in the Meiji era. Much of their dress and mannerisms was adopted from the traditions of the Heian era noblewomen.

__

Makoto - "truth", "sincerity" - multiple other translations exist. The kanji the Shinsengumi lived by.

__

Kesagiri - "Scarf cut"; a diagonal slice from the shoulder down across the torso, like the "scarf" of a Buddhist monk.

__

Shakujo - Ring-tipped staff, carried by certain Japanese monks to ward off evil. Also makes a good youkai-basher.

__

Tenchuu - "Heaven's Justice"; message left by the Revolutionaries on assassinated enemies.

__

Owari - End.

Spider's Web - extremely strong opium invented by Takani Megumi's instructor. After he was tortured to death by Takeda Kanryuu (a villain who planned to move up from drug-dealing to arms dealing) she was the only one who knew the formula. For three years she made it for Kanryuu to keep herself alive; then managed to escape, running into Kenshin and Sanosuke at a dice game. For more, see Rurouni Kenshin volumes 3 and 4. Suffice it to say Sano and Megumi's relationship got off to at least as rocky a start as Xander and Cordelia's.

Letting him eat cold meal - _Hiyameshi wo kuwaseru_. A Japanese proverb, "the cold shoulder".

Guardian of Chaos - Katsura Kogoro, Kenshin's superior in the Ishin Shishi, did indeed identify Kenshin as this when he explained himself to Tomoe. Though Katsura was an excellent swordsman himself, it was decided he had to keep his hands free of bloodshed so that he might "blamelessly" take power later after the Revolution succeeded. Thus the Hitokiri Battousai.

A/N: I wrote this as if Halloween took place on Tuesday; I've since had it pointed out that Halloween would have been on a Friday that year. Ah well. A quirk of the Hellmouth?

Who was who in Meiji and today:

Buffy - Kaoru Kamiya.

Xander - Sanosuke Sagara.

Cordelia - Megumi Takani.

Willow - Tsubame Sanjou.

Oz - Yahiko Myojin.

Rupert Giles - Hajime Saitou.

Hiko Sejuuro - didn't reincarnate. Still the same arrogant swordmaster.

Kenshin Himura - pretty much himself.

Note that Angel became a vampire long before Meiji, so he isn't anyone's reincarnation.


End file.
